The age of an ancient South African proto-human fossil called Little Foot has finally been agreed upon.

The Australopithecus specimen is now 3.67 million years old, a contemporary of world-famous Lucy, Ethiopia's fossilized female Australopithecus afarensis specimen.

The new findings suggest Little Foot was an older relative of "Lucy," the famous Australopithecus skeleton dated at 3.2 million years old and found in Ethiopia. Little Foot was first discovered about two decades ago in a South African cave and is believed to represent an Australopithecus Prometheus lineage.

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"It demonstrates that the later hominids, for example, Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus did not all have to have derived from Australopithecus afarensis", said Ronald Clarke, a professor in the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand, who discovered the skeleton.

"We have only a small number of sites and we tend to base our evolutionary scenarios on the few fossils we have from those sites. This new date is a reminder that there could well have been many species of Australopithecus extending over a much wider area of Africa,"

New analysis verifies the younger sediment formed within cavities left when portions of the old rock dissolved.

Researchers used a radioisotopic dating technique developed by Darryl Granger, a professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences at Purdue. The technique, dubbed as isochron burial dating, measures levels of isotopes (specifically aluminum-26 and beryllium-10) found in rocks surrounding a fossil.

Afterwards, a graph of the isotope ratios called an isochron is then created for the rock samples to demonstrate if they have been compromised and are good candidates for dating.

The study appeared in a recent edition of the journal Nature.

TagsFinally, Scientists Agree on Little Foot's Birthday, evolution, Human evolution, Little Foot, human fossil, Fossil, Lucy, Australopithecus afarensis, South African cave, radioisotopic, isochron burial dating