The five leaders of the BRICS countries watched a livestream video of the unveiling of the nearly complete skeleton known as Little Foot to the public at their 10th summit in Johannesburg, South Africa last Thursday.

Little Foot, a fossilized skeleton of an early form of Australopithecus, is between 4.1 million and 3.3 million years old, making it the oldest known hominid from the Cradle of Humankind.

The fossil was found in the Sterkfontein Caves by Ronald Clarke, palaeoanthropologist and professor at the University of the Witwatersrand's Institute for Human Evolution.

The Cradle of Humankind is a paleoanthropological site about 50 kilometers from Johannesburg, South Africa. It was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1999.

People’s Daily reporters explored the caves in the Cradle of Humankind.

Cover image: Professor Ron Clarke holding “Little Foot”. (Photo: Du Mingming/People’s Daily)