Dr Jesse Martin of LaTrobe University thinks Little Foot could be a whole new branch of the human family tree.
Photograph: La Trobe University
A brief communication, published last November in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology may, if creationists never read past the title (as usual), have produced a frisson of excitement in those circles. It questioned the taxonomic status of one of the most complete fossil skeletons of an early ancestral hominin, Australopithecus prometheus, popularly known as “Little Foot”.
However, reading even a little further would have turned that excitement into disappointment — assuming, of course, that they understood what they were reading. The authors were not questioning whether the fossil was ancestral at all, but whether it had been assigned to the correct position in the hominin family tree, or whether it should instead be recognised as a distinct ancestral hominin species. In other words, this was a discussion about how many transitional species there are, not whether transitional species exist at all.
The only crumb of comfort available to creationists is the familiar claim that this demonstrates how science “keeps changing its mind”, something they take as evidence that science is fundamentally unreliable—presumably including even those parts they routinely misrepresent as supporting their beliefs.
For anyone who understands the scientific method, and the importance of treating all knowledge as provisional and contingent on the best available evidence, this paper represents the principle functioning exactly as it should. Far from being a weakness, this willingness to revise conclusions in the light of new information is what makes science self-correcting and progressively more accurate over time.
The authors of the paper — a team led by La Trobe University adjunct Dr Jesse Martin—carried out a new analysis of the “Little Foot” fossils and concluded that the specimen was probably placed in the wrong taxon when first described on the basis that it does not share the same “unique suite of primitive and derived features” as Australopithecus africanus. Since that initial assessment, additional fossils of A. prometheus have been discovered, and it has become clear that “Little Foot” also differs from those specimens. At the same time, it remains sufficiently distinct from A. africanus that reassignment to that species is not justified. In short, it possesses its own unique combination of primitive and derived traits and should therefore be recognised as a separate species.
Naturally, there is no real comfort here for creationists. The phrase “suite of primitive and derived features” is simply palaeontological shorthand for evidence of descent with modification—what Darwin referred to as transitional forms. It follows that the researchers involved have no doubt whatsoever that the species under discussion evolved from earlier ancestors, and there is no hint that they believe it was spontaneously created, without ancestry, by magic.
Background information^ “Transitional species” in hominin evolution.The work of the La Trobe–led team is summarised in a La Trobe University news article.In evolutionary biology, the term “transitional species” does not mean a half-formed or incomplete organism. It refers to a population that combines ancestral traits with newly evolved, derived traits, capturing a stage in an evolutionary sequence. Such species are fully functional in their own ecological context, but occupy an intermediate position between earlier and later forms.
"Transitional" Hominins:
Top L to R; Australopithecus sediba (Wikipedia CC BY SA-4.0); A. afarensis ('Lucy') (Wikipedia CC BY 2.5); A. prometheus ('Little Foot') (USC.Today).
Bottom L to R: Homo habilis (Wikipedia CC BY 4.0); H. erectus (Australian Museum)
In hominin evolution, transitional species are not rare exceptions but the expected outcome of gradual evolutionary change over millions of years. Because evolution proceeds by modification of existing structures, fossils frequently show mosaics of traits rather than abrupt jumps from one form to another.
Early australopithecines, such as Australopithecus afarensis, display a mixture of ape-like and human-like features: small brains and long arms suited to climbing, combined with pelvis and leg structures adapted for habitual bipedalism. Later forms, including Australopithecus africanus and Australopithecus prometheus (the species to which “Little Foot” is attributed), show further refinements in locomotion and anatomy, while still retaining many primitive characteristics.
The transition does not end with australopithecines. Early members of the genus Homo habilis retain relatively small brains and apelike proportions, yet show evidence of increased tool use and behavioural complexity. Later species such as Homo erectus exhibit larger brains, more human-like body proportions, and long-distance dispersal beyond Africa—again illustrating gradual change rather than sudden appearance.
Importantly, palaeoanthropologists do not expect evolution to produce a single, neat “missing link”. Instead, the fossil record reveals a branching pattern, with multiple hominin species coexisting, diverging, and sometimes going extinct. Taxonomic debates—such as whether a fossil belongs to an existing species or represents a new one—reflect this complexity, not uncertainty about evolution itself. The difficulty in assigning an accurate taxon is to be expected, as there never is a discrete point in time when one species changes into another, like the childish creationist parodies of evolution, because the whole population changes gradually over time.
In short, so-called transitional species are not anomalies that challenge evolutionary theory. They are precisely what the theory predicts, and their increasing number and anatomical detail are among the strongest lines of evidence for human evolution, each representing a snapshot in time of an ever-evolving gradation.
Where does red become blue?
Iconic fossil may be new type of human ancestorIn the end, this episode illustrates not a flaw in science, but its greatest strength. The reassessment of “Little Foot” is not an admission of ignorance or failure; it is a demonstration of how scientific understanding improves as new evidence accumulates and analytical techniques advance. Taxonomic refinement is an expected and routine part of palaeoanthropology, particularly in a field where new discoveries can illuminate previously unseen patterns of variation and ancestry.
An international study led by researchers from Australia’s La Trobe University and the University of Cambridge has challenged the classification of one of the world's most complete human ancestral fossils, raising the possibility of a new human species.
The fossil, found in South Africa’s Sterkfontein Caves in 1998 and dubbed "Little Foot", has been widely believed to be a member of the Australopithecus genus, a lineage of ape-like upright walkers that lived in South Africa between 3 million and 1.95 million years ago.
Paleoanthropologist Ronald Clarke, who led the team that took 20 years to excavate and analyse the skeleton, attributed Little Foot to the species Australopithecus prometheus when the fossil was first revealed to the world in 2017. Others maintained it was Australopithecus africanus, a species first described by Australian anatomist Raymond Dart in 1925 and which was already known from the same site and South Africa more broadly.
But in a peer-reviewed article published in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology, a team led by La Trobe University adjunct Dr Jesse Martin found that Little Foot does not share a unique suite of traits with either species, raising the possibility that it may represent a new species altogether.
This fossil remains one of the most important discoveries in the hominin record and its true identity is key to understanding our evolutionary past. We think it's demonstrably not the case that it’s A. prometheus or A. africanus. This is more likely a previously unidentified, human relative.
Dr Clarke deserves credit for the discovery of Little Foot, and being one of the only people to maintain there were two species of hominin at Sterkfontein. Little Foot demonstrates in all likelihood he's right about that. There are two species.
Dr Jesse M. Martin, lead author
Palaeoscience Labs
Department of Archaeology and History
Latrobe University
Bundoora, Victoria, Australia.
Little Foot, known formally as StW 573, remains the most complete ancient hominin in the fossil record.
Dr Martin’s team is the first to have challenged the species attribution of Little Foot since it was unveiled in 2017.
Our findings challenge the current classification of Little Foot and highlight the need for further careful, evidence-based taxonomy in human evolution.
Dr Jesse M. Martin
Dr Martin, who is an adjunct at La Trobe and a postdoctoral research fellow at Cambridge, and students from La Trobe University will now work to clarify which species Little Foot represents and where that species sits in the human family tree.
The research was carried out under the auspice of an Australian Research Council grant directed by Professor Andy Herries at La Trobe.
Professor Herries said Little Foot was one of the most complete and important fossils ever discovered in terms of what it could tell us about early human diversity and how our ancestors adapted to the different environments of southern Africa.
It is clearly different from the type specimen of Australopithecus prometheus, which was a name defined on the idea these early humans made fire, which we now know they didn’t. Its importance and difference to other contemporary fossils clearly show the need for defining it as its own unique species.
Professor Andy I.R. Herries, co-author
Palaeoscience Labs
Department of Archaeology and History
Latrobe University
Bundoora, Victoria, Australia.
The research involved collaboration between institutions in the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa and the United States.
Publication:
For creationists, however, this distinction is routinely missed or deliberately ignored. Any revision is portrayed as vacillation, while the complete absence of testable evidence for special creation is treated as certainty. Yet only one of these approaches is capable of correcting its own mistakes, refining its models, and converging on an ever more accurate account of reality.
Far from undermining human evolution, debates over hominin classification strengthen it. Each newly recognised species, each clarified relationship, and each refined evolutionary pathway adds detail to an already overwhelming body of evidence showing that humans are the product of deep time, branching descent, and gradual change. Science moves forward by questioning details, not by clinging to unalterable dogma—and it is precisely this process that continues to leave creationist claims stranded far outside the realm of reality.
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