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Ancient footprints reveal that a thriving landscape 1.5 million years ago in what is now Kenya was able to accommodate two different species of hominin, living side by side.– a direct ancestor and an ancestral relative of modern humans, respectively – lived their lives in the Turkana Basin, they left their footprints, impressed deep in the mud around the lake, probably with barely a thought.
That"closely together in time" is no exaggeration. According to an analysis of the footprints led by biologist Kevin Hatala of Chatham University in the US, the prints at the site were made within hours of each other."With these kinds of data, we can see how living individuals, millions of years ago, were moving around their environments and potentially interacting with each other, or even with other animals.
Hatala is an expert in foot anatomy. He and his colleagues conducted a detailed analysis of the prints at the site. They used two- and three-dimensional measurement techniques based on scans taken of the prints, and reconstructed the tread that was made to make the impressions.
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