The Story of Little Foot

The discovery of Little Foot is one of the greatest detective stories in the study of human evolution. Uniquely caught on film, Ron Clarke's, fifteen year endeavour has produced the most complete skeleton ever found of one of our oldest ape-like ancestors. It began in 1994 while Professor Clarke was rummaging through a box of unsorted fossil fragments blasted out of Johannesburg's famous Sterkfontein Caves. Initially, he found four from a single foot. Several years later he discovered more bones from the same foot, as well as a tibia, in another box. Convinced he could find the rest of the skeleton, Clarke got his crew to scour Sterkfontein. The search focussed on a deep, dark cavern. Astonishingly, within a days, they found a piece of fossil leg sticking out of the wall that exactly matched a fragment from the boxes. But discovering Little Foot was only the start of a marathon project lasting seventeen years. The skeleton had to be painstakingly removed from hard rock with the precision of a surgeon. The value of such a pristine specimen is incalculable. Nothing can be damaged since every feature of this earliest of humans is subject to to the most detailed scientific scrutiny and interpretation. Seldom, if ever, are cameras privy to the search and discovery of an early hominid of the magnitude of Little Foot. In this beautifully filmed documentary by Paul Myburgh , viewers get a rare opportunity to watch a renowned paleoanthropologist follow a fossil trail while sharing the ups and downs, the hope and the despair - but ultimately the single-minded determination of a man on a quest to advance our understanding of where we come from.