Recreating the “crime” scene

The excavation of the Little Foot skeleton enabled the researchers to reconstruct the circumstances of his death. What happened to Little Foot? The Paleoanthropologists collected enough evidence to reconstruct the circumstances of his arrival, undoubtedly involuntary, into the Silberberg Grotto…

A skeleton in anatomical connection

The teeth of Little Foot still in occlusion, providing ample information as detailed as the tartar that covered them. © Laurent Bruxelles, Inrap

Little Foot is the most complete (95 %) pre-human fossil ever discovered. Most importantly, this skeleton remained in connection, meaning the bones were still in contact with each other. This is not true of most of the other fossils discovered at Sterkfontein, or other sites nearby, or elsewhere in Africa, where single bones are usually found separate from each other. The surface of these bones often display tooth marks, showing that their flesh was eaten by predators, such as the leopards and sabre-toothed tigers that lived in the region a few million years ago. Since Australopithecines figured among their prey, at least some of the fossils found at Sterkfontein are remains of their meals. Little Foot was not consumed by a predator or transported into the cave by running water, nor was his skeleton moved by scavengers (hyenas, porcupines, etc.) after his death.

A fatal fall

Little Foot remained in the position of his death: one arm in the air with the hand closed around the thumb inside, the other arm rolled against the body and the legs twisted. The entrance of the cave in which he was discovered consisted of a sink-hole that was hidden by trees and undergrowth, and gradually filled in through time, constituting a refuge. Little Foot apparently fell into this deep shaft, his body landing on a talus in the direction of the slope. The fall of more than 20 meters was fatal, but its cause remains a mystery. Was he running from a predator ? Was he pushed ? In this case, science leaves room for imagination.

Burial

The deep cave shaft into which Little Foot fell gradually filled with sediments over thousands of years. It is by chance that dynamiting by miners uncovered the fossil. One more dynamite explosion and he would have been pulverized… © Laurent Bruxelles, Inrap

Over time, Little Foot was buried under stones and dirt that fell in from the surface. Several dozens of meters of sediment accumulated on top of him over hundreds of thousands of years, trapping the skeleton within a stony matrix. Infiltrations from the cave roof containing large quantities of dissolved limestone cemented the entire infilling of the cave, making it as hard as concrete.