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Meldrum's paper does not address this fossil or offer anything to contest that the fossils indicates an arch in afarensis. Meldrum's paper focuses on the Laetoli trackway showing a midtarsal break in the afarensis foot. You can probably find at least 10 different papers written with interpretations of the Laetoli trackway and what it infers about afarensis, but one of the most prominent was written by Tim White and Gen Suwa, White was in the original excavation of the tracks and also with Suwa on the re-excavation. Only a handfull of people have been able to do so, others have to rely on cast copies and photos. White and Suwa maintained that afarensis did have an arch, and that interpretations of a midtarsal break are based off of casts which do not show the different layers of substrate and holes in the substrate from things like a hammer and chisel and degradation of the tracks. That paper can be read here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.1330720409/abstract

The conclusion that it takes an arch to be bipedal is simple minded and it ignores hominids that don't have an arch. It isn't just simple minded from ignoring actual hominids that don't have an arch, it is like the author with that opinion has no comprehension about the subject that they are discussing and see the single model of the human foot as the only model that could work. With all the other feet out there in the animal world, that is amazingly narrow minded. It reminds me of some scientist quoted on the old BFF that said something to the effect that bigfoot would have the same problems that modern humans with fallen arches would have if it had flat feet. That was supposed to be an argument against the existence of sasquatch. It is like those people have zero comprehension of basic biology and no clue how evolution works. I am trying to cut them some slack but frankly it sounds to me like someone trying to make a big deal out of his fossil by seeing or inventing something that isn't even there. Either that or they lack the capacity to understand basic biology and simple mechanics. Sorry, I guess I am getting irritated by "scientists" with agendas. The part that really irritates me is the silly notion that an arch on the foot is what defines bipedalism and without it, it is a tree dweller. They are anthropomorphizing all hominid feet as if they are just underdeveloped modern human feet.