Little Foot
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| Catalog no. | Stw 573 |
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| Common name | Little Foot |
| Species | Australopithecus, species uncertain |
| Age | 2.2–3.3 mya |
| Place discovered | South Africa |
| Date discovered | 1994 |
| Discovered by | Ronald J. Clarke |
"Little Foot" (Stw 573) is the nickname given to a nearly complete Australopithecus fossil skeleton found in 1994–1998 in the cave system of Sterkfontein, South Africa. [1] The fossils were found in a limestone formation in Sterkfontein. The nickname "little foot" was given to the fossil in 1995. From the structure of the four ankle bones they were able to ascertain that the owner was able to walk upright. The recovery of the bones proved extremely difficult and tedious, because they are completely embedded in concrete-like rock. It is due to this that the recovery and excavation of the site took around 15 years to complete.
The four bones of the ankle had been collected already in 1980 but were undetected between numerous other mammal bones. Only after 1992, on initiative by Phillip Tobias, a large rock was blown up in the cave that contained an unusual accumulation of fossils. The fossils recovered were taken from the cave and scrutinized thoroughly by paleoanthropologist Ronald J. Clarke.
In 1994 while searching through museum boxes labelled 'Cercopithecoids' containing fossil fragments, Ronald J. Clarke identified several that were unmistakably hominin. He spotted four left foot bones (the talus, navicular, medial cuneiform and first metatarsal) that were most likely from the same individual. These fragments came from the Silberberg Grotto, a large cavern within the Sterkfontein cave system. They were described as belonging to the genus Australopithecus, and catalogued as Stw 573.
Due to the diminutive nature of the bones, they were dubbed "Little Foot". Dr. Clarke found further foot bones from the same individual in separate bags in 1997, including a right fragment of the distal tibia that had been clearly sheared off from the rest of the bone.
Early in 1997 two fossil preparators and assistants of Dr. Clarke, Stephen Motsumi and Nkwane Molefe, were sent to the Silberberg Grotto to try to find the matching piece of tibia that attached to this fragment. Amazingly, within two days they found the remaining part of the bone protruding from the rock in the lower part of the grotto. Because the bones of both legs were in anatomically correct arrangement, the team speculated that it could be a complete skeleton, which was embedded with the face downward in the limestone. In the following months, Clarke and his two assistants with the help of a hammer and small chisel uncovered further foot bones. Stephen Motsumi discovered the first remains of the upper body, an upper arm bone on 11 September 1998, and eventually the head of the individual was seen as well. It was a skull connected with the lower jaw, which was facing up.These were announced to the press in 1998, resulting in considerable media attention around the world.
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