Previous attempts to date the Little Foot fossil produced results ranging from 2.2 million years old to more than 4 million years old.
Notes on verification
Matches original National Geographic and Science.org wording closely; corroborated by multiple independent sources (Purdue press release, ScienceDaily, EurekAlert, peer-reviewed stratigraphic literature). Minor variation in low-end estimate (1.7-2.2 Ma) across sources but core claim well supported. [cascade flags: aggregator_dropped_primary_exists,wikipedia_dropped_other_sources_exist | tier=silver indep_score=0.983 clusters=3 claim_tier=notable | kind=empirical eligibility=high]
Sources
- 'Little Foot' Fossil Skeleton Rivals Famous Lucy in Age (seed:science_and_space)
- https://www.science.org/content/article/little-foot-human-ancestor-or-just-distant-cousin (corroboration)
- https://www.science.org/content/article/little-foot-not-so-ancient (corroboration)
- https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/littlefoot.html (corroboration)
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S004724841830280X (corroboration)