🔄FROM THE ARCHIVE: Volcanic ash buried evidence shortly after several individuals walked through a part of eastern Africa.
Researchers know that all these animals, including the hominins that walked in all these groups, date to roughly the same period. Based on the sediment samples, it appears one eruption buried the ground in a layer of volcanic ash. Sometime after the first eruption, several hominins and several animals passed through muddy material in the Laetoli area, which then dried in a relatively short period of time.
Nonetheless, the theory was far from conclusive, and the lack of further evidence placed the question on the back-burner for decades.McNutt and her colleagues wanted to revisit this question, but couldn’t find the molds of the prints taken at site A decades earlier. Furthermore, 40 years of seasonal rain possibly destroyed the original trackway that was unmarked. But the team wanted to see if they could find them.
Once they uncovered the tracks, McNutt was immediately convinced an ancient bear didn’t leave the bipedal prints. But to be sure, she worked with Benjamin Kilham of the Kilham Bear Center in New Hampshire. The researchers worked with orphaned bears at the center awaiting reintroduction to the wild. They chose juveniles, whose feet roughly matched the size of those bipedal prints at site A, and had them walk upright through a mud track.
Furthermore, the evidence in these five prints shows that the individual was cross-stepping similar to the way models walk on runways. Bears and even chimps don’t have the balance to do this like humans, or our nearer ancestors, because of the shape of their hips and knees. McNutt says the strange pattern could reveal a child playing while walking, or someone slipping or falling. It could even mean the hominin had a unique gait.
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