A 3.3 million-year-old skeleton of the earliest child ever found shows the ancient ancestor of modern humans walked upright but may have also climbed trees, scientists said today.
They discovered the well preserved remains of the three-year old girl of the species Australopithecus afarensis - the species which includes the famous fossil skeleton known as "Lucy" - in an area of Ethiopia called Dikika.
"It represents the earliest and most complete partial skeleton of a child ever found in the history of paeleoanthropology," said Dr Zeresenay Alemseged, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
The skull, torso and upper and lower limbs including the hand show both human and ape-like features. The state of the ancient bones suggest she was buried in a flood which may have also caused her death.
The remains provide the first evidence of what babies of early human ancestors looked like. The nearly complete skeleton will also provide information about the child's height and structure.
"This child will help us understand a lot about the species to which it belongs," said Alemseged, the leader of the international team of scientists who reported the findings in the journal Nature.
"The lower part of the body, which includes the foot, the shin bone and the thigh bone clearly shows us that this species was an upright walking creature," he said.
But some of the features from the upper part of the body, including the shoulder blade and arms are more ape-like. The fingers are long and curved which suggest she might have been able to swing through trees.
"My opinion is that we cannot exclude that Australopithecus afarensis climbed trees," he added.