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Sophisticated scanning technology has revealed interesting secrets about Littlefoot, a well-preserved fossil of an early representative of the human evolutionary line, who lived in South Africa 3.67 million years ago.
Scientists said today that they have investigated key parts of the fossils at the British synchotron institution Diamond Light Sources. The scan focused on the top of Litlfut’s skull and lower jaw.
Scientists have gathered evidence not only about the species Litlfut, but also about the difficulties they went through as adults, and it is a woman’s fossil.
“In the skull, we were able to identify vascular channels in one bone, which was used for thermoregulation, which is probably how the brain cooled,” said paleoanthropologist Amelia Bodet from the University of Cambridge, who led the study.
She added that her teeth were well preserved and that she died relatively old, because her teeth were, so to speak, worn out.
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