Article: Hominid bones show strides toward walking. (hominid instep bones provide insight into evolution of human locomotion)(Science News of the Week)

Animal fossils stored in a box since their excavation 15 years ago at an underground cave in South Africa have yielded an unexpected discovery--four foot bones that fit together to form the left instep of a hominid that lived about 3.5 million years ago. The bones provide the first clear fossil evidence that members of the human evolutionary family evolved in stages from climbing in trees and moving about on all fours to walking upright.

"This partial foot provides a locomotor missing link in the hominid fossil record," asserts Phillip V. Tobias, an anthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand Medical School in Johannesburg. "It combines a weight-bearing ...

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