The discovery of the oldest complete hominid skeleton, dating back 3.6 million years, is expected to shed light on whether early human ancestors lived in trees, South African researchers said Tuesdsy.
"It's one of many missing links from ape to man," said Ron Clarke, a paleo-anthropologist at the University of Witwatersrand who made the find.The skull, limbs and torso--much of them still imbedded in rock in a cave near Johannesburg--belong to fossilized foot and ankle bones discovered in 1994 by Clarke.
Clarke and his University of Witwatersrand colleague Philip Tobias contend that a large articulated big toe on the original find implied that humans, as they evolved from apes, both walked upright like men and climbed trees like apes.
Paleontologists for years have debated whether human ancestors lived in trees after the evolutionary split from the ancestors of chimps and gorillas. Many say man evolved from a plains-dwelling species that walked upright.
The skeleton was discovered underground at Sterkfontein, a former lime quarry cave that has yielded a number of hominid skulls since the 1930s.
Believed to have been 4 feet tall, the creature lived in a wooded area and was capable of climbing trees, Clarke said.