It is difficult to reconstruct an entire case from individual body parts. This applies not only to criminal cases, but also to human history, especially when a few bones have to represent an entire species. A partially preserved foot from the Afar region of Ethiopia has now been linked to teeth, skull and pelvis fragments discovered nearby. This makes the partial skeleton particularly talkative – and shows how several human-like species coexisted around 3.4 million years ago.
