An ancient 3-year-old was a tree climber, experts have deduced after studying her fossils dating back to more than 3 million years ago.
In 2002 experts uncovered the nearly complete skeleton of “Selam,” an early human ancestor called Australopithecus afarensis, in the Dikika region of Ethiopia, CNN noted.
Freeing the delicate fossil from the ground took several years as researchers had to work meticulously to extract her from encased sediment.
Now, as studies turn the skeletal structure of her foot, these researchers are learning important information about how the children of our early ancestors lived and moved.
Details were published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.
"For the first time, we have an amazing window into what walking was like for a 2½-year-old, more than 3 million years ago," said Jeremy DeSilva, lead study author and an associate professor of anthropology at Dartmouth College, according to CNN. "This is the most complete foot of an ancient juvenile ever discovered."
Zeresenay Alemseged, paleontologist and professor of organismal biology and anatomy and the University of Chicago and senior author of the study added that "the morphology that you see in adults is the result of both their evolution through time and how they changed as they grew," which is why studying younger individuals is important.
Australopithecus afarensis was similar to chimpanzees, growing rapidly after birth and reaching adulthood much earlier than modern humans, The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History noted.
Members of the species had both ape and human characteristics and could walk upright but also live in trees.
According to CNN, Selam was similar in size to a chimpanzee and depended on her mother for survival.
Looking at her foot structure, researchers have now determined that Selam was adapted to be an exceptional climber, which meant that afarensis toddlers could walk upright but probably spent more time in trees like apes.
These findings could shed light on the evolution of walking upright and shows how crucial the afarensis species was for human evolution.
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