Footprints preserved on the shore of Lake Turkana in Kenya seem to be from two ancient human species, showing they lived there at the same time about 1.5 million years ago
Preserved footprints in Kenya appear to record two different species of ancient humans walking over the same muddy lakeshore, probably within days of each other. It is one of the most dramatic demonstrations ever found that the world was once home to multiple hominin species living side by side.in Koobi Fora, Kenya, near the eastern shore of Lake Turkana.
Preserved in a dried-out layer of sand and silt, the team found a trackway consisting of 12 footprints , evidently left by one individual walking in a straight line. There were also three isolated prints near the main group, seemingly made by three different individuals. The lack of signs of mud cracking or overprinting of tracks with others indicate that the prints were all made at about the same time.
The sediment has been dated to about 1.52 million years ago. The isolated tracks resemble those left by modern humans: the heel struck the ground first, then the foot rolled forwards before pushing off with the sole. Hatala and his colleagues suggest that these were made byIn contrast, the continuous trackway was made by a more flat-footed hominin.
Hatala and his team then looked at other known footprints discovered in the same region and time period and found that they seemed to match either one species or the other. “We see a similar pattern at multiple other sites, and they might span more than 100,000 years,” he says. “It seems like these two species were coexisting on this same immediate landscape with one another for a very prolonged period of time.
“We’re guessing that there was maybe low to neutral levels of competition between them, if they were able to coexist for more than 100,000 years,” says Hatala. Previous research has suggested the two ate different foods. Unlike“Both of them could carve out their own existence in this shared landscape,” says Hatala. Later, environmental shifts may have driven
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