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Science 8 December 2006:
Vol. 314. no. 5805, p. 1512
DOI: 10.1126/science.314.5805.1512f
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This Week in Science

An important australopithecine, StW 573, has been recovered from Sterkfontein cave, South Africa. Originally, only its foot was recovered, but it now appears that most of the skeleton is available. This hominid has been thought to have lived before 3 million years ago (Ma), and earlier work, based on magnetic stratigraphy and cosmogenic dating, put it as old as 4 Ma. Walker et al. (p. 1592) dated the cave deposits holding the fossil with the more accurate U-Pb system. Their ages indicate that the fossil formed only about 2.2 Ma, which implies that the South African australopithecines represent hominids living after the development of tools, rather than before.




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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)