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In a fossil first , researchers have announced the find of 1.5 million - yr - erstwhile footprints that essay two different pre - human species coexisted in Kenya . The rails hint that the mintage may have interact , raising new interrogative about the behavior of our root .
" I would require the two species would have been cognizant of each other ’s existence on that landscape , and they probably would have recognise each other as being ' different,'“Kevin Hatala , a paleoanthropologist at Chatham University in Pennsylvania , told Live Science in an email .
An aerial photograph of excavated footprints, with research team members standing alongside.
Hatala lead a team of researchers who analyzed the footprints , which were come up at the site of Koobi Fora on the eastern shoring of Lake Turkana in 2021 . The scientists published their determination Thursday ( Nov. 28 ) in the journalScience .
A number of fossil footprints have been found in East Africa — such as thefamous trackwayat Laetoli , Tanzania , made byLucy’sspeciesAustralopithecus afarensis3.6 million years ago . But researchers noticed something unparalleled about the Koobi Fora trackway : Two bipeds with significantly unlike human foot made the tracks along the lake margin within minute of one another .
Several hominin species made their dwelling house at Koobi Fora over the span of about 3 million years , let in two types of australopithecines and four members of theHomogenus . But because the fogey record is uncompleted and fragmental , paleoanthropologists could not ascertain which hominins lived on the same landscape painting at the same time .
An overhead view of a fossil footprint created byParanthropus boisei.
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The new discover Koobi Fora footprint track is about 26 ft ( 8 meters ) long and includes one trackway consisting of a 12 footmark made by one individual and three more footprints made by others . A jumbo nonextant marabou stork ( Leptoptilos falconeri ) also cross through the wet mud , which was speedily inhume and keep .
Hatala and colleague used three-D imaging techniques to evaluate the shape and movement of the trackmakers ' feet . They found that two of the disjunct footprint had gamy arch and a heel - to - toe footfall like mod human being . These footprints were belike made by our lineal ancestorH. erectus , which had a very human - comparable trunk shape and size .
An overhead view of a fossil footprint made byHomo erectus.
However , the trackway of a dozen footprints let out a different pattern . These track were much flatter , with a deep forefoot strike compared to the heel hit . The researchers also point out that the self-aggrandising toe was somewhat spread out out and not fully in argumentation with the infantry as it is in humans , suggest that the trackmaker was likelyParanthropus boisei , a heavy built australopithecine with large jaw and a divergent big toe .
The sizes of the feet varied , but the researchers do not have enough entropy to determine whether the trackmakers were males , females or children , Hatala say . The dozen footprint were made by aP. boiseiindividual who would have wear out a U.S. men ’s size 8.5 or women ’s size of it 10 shoe , he say , while the isolatedH. erectusfootprints were smaller , roughly a women ’s size 4 to a adult male ’s size of it 6 .
Zach Throckmorton , a paleoanthropologist at Colorado State University who was not involve in the research , told Live Science in an email that " Hatala and colleagues ' comparisons of foot notion provide compelling and convincing grounds of the coexistence ofHomo erectusandParanthropus boiseiat Koobi Fora in Kenya about 1.5 million eld ago . " constancy of the self-aggrandising toe is key to humans ' power to walk and hunt down without foot problems , Throckmorton said , and " the less forward-looking homo - like trackway attributed toP. boiseilacks this critical adaptation . "
In addition to revealing important anatomical dispute , the footprint suggest at the conduct of our hominin antecedent .
" Footprints are a snapshot of a minute in time,“Jeremy DeSilva , a paleoanthropologist at Dartmouth College who was not involved in the discipline , tell Live Science in an email . This young research means " we now know with foregone conclusion that these two dissimilar kinds of hominins not only lived at the same metre , but they shared the same landscape painting and walked with slightly different gaits , " DeSilva said . " I wonder what they conceive of each other and how they interacted , if at all . "
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The interaction betweenP. boiseiandH. erectusmay have been cognate to Pan troglodytes and gorillas , Hatala tell — two species that have been seen engaging inboth positiveandnegative social interaction . But as the newfound footprints were see within a few feet of one another and made within a short windowpane of time , P. boiseiandH. erectusmay have been close than we ever thought .
" It is enchanting to think about what they would have thought when they saw each other , and how they would have interacted , " Hatala said .
