To address RO1, to explore differences in the internal bone structure of the feet of living taxa, the bone structure of the metatarsals was analysed and differences between humans and apes were found in the distribution of bone within the joints and in the relative strength of the bones across the foot. Internal bone structure of the ankle was explored across humans and non-human apes and differences in bone distribution related to locomotion were identified. To address RO2, exploring variability across human groups, micro-CT scans were collected from a diverse range of human populations – from two active human hunter gatherer populations and from Tudor soldiers from the Mary Rose shipwreck. This data will be analysed in future to explore variability among human groups. The goals of RO3 were addressed by analysing the internal bone structure of the foot and ankle of Australopithecus africanus from Sterkfontein, and the foot of Homo floresiensis, the short-statured hominin from the Indonesian island of Flores. Future research will continued to explore the internal bone structure of the foot and ankle of these taxa, as well as that of Homo naledi and Australopithecus sediba. The FOOTSTEP project was terminated early, due to the researcher taking up a position as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the USA. However, future research will, through ongoing collaboration between the researcher and supervisor, continue to address the FOOTSTEP research objectives.
Project results were disseminated at two international conferences in 2022: the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Biological Anthropologists and the European Society for the study of Human Evolution. Futher, results will be disseminated in international conferences in 2023, via two abstracts at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Biological Anthropologists and one abstract at the International Congress of Vertebrate Morphology. Results of the analysis of the foot of Homo floresiensis will be presented at the Liang Bua MicroCT Workshop (9th-13th October 2023), to ensure results are disseminated to scientists whose research involves material, both skeletal and archaeological, from the Liang Bua cave. Four research articles resulting from this research are currently in preparation to be submitted to academic journals. It is expected that the data collected and analysed during the project period will result in several additional publications in future.
During the project, the researcher received training in novel methods for analysis of internal bone structure, including segmentation methods and application of geometric morphometric based approaches to statistically compare internal bone structure between groups. The researcher also contributed to the supervision of one Masters student and three doctoral students.
