Mystery Owner of 3.4 Million-Year-Old Foot in Africa Identified: Study

A strange fossilized foot unearthed in Ethiopia over a decade ago may finally have an identity, according to scientists. A new study published in the journal Nature argues that the 3.4 million-year-old ‘Burtele foot,’ discovered in 2009, belonged to Australopithecus deyiremeda, a human relative that lived alongside the famous ancestor ‘Lucy.’ The team of scientists who found the foot named the new species in 2015, linking it to other 3.4-million-year-old jaw bones discovered at the same site. However, it was only recently that the Burtele foot was definitively confirmed to belong to the hominin species Au. deyiremeda.