Ancient Footprints in Kenya Hint at Bigger Bodies and Group Behavior Among Early Human Relatives
New estimates from 21 footprints suggest the species was taller and heavier than once thought, and eight individuals moved together, researchers said.
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Ancient footprints found in Kenya reveal how early human relatives may have travelled and lived together 1.43 million years ago
Ancient footprints found in Kenya offer rare glimpses into early human relatives. These impressions date back approximately 1.43 million years to a lakeshore environment. The tracks suggest several large-bodied individuals moved together across muddy ground. This discovery provides new evidence about hominin body size and social organization. The findings reshape current ideas about Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei.
Fossilized footprints of about 1.4 million years found in northern Kenya are leading scientists to review what was known about Parantropus bonei, an extinct species of hominide known as "Man Nutcracker". Analysis of 21 brands preserved in the soil suggests that these ancient relatives of humans were significantly higher than previous estimates and presented a more complex social behavior, possibly forming groups composed only of adult males.
Ancient Footprints in Kenya Hint at Bigger Bodies and Group Behavior among Early Human Relatives
A set of 1.43-million-year-old fossil footprints preserved along the margin of an ancient lake in northern Kenya is offering paleoanthropologists new evidence about the size, gait and social lives of the beings who made them and reopening questions about which species they belonged to. The post Ancient Footprints in Kenya Hint at Bigger Bodies and Group Behavior among Early Human Relatives appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
It seems incredible that simple footprints can give so much information. But it is, and the truth is that fossilized traces of ancient hominids allow access to vital data that simple fossil bones do not have. A fragment of skull, a chipped femur or an isolated jaw tell us about the diet, the age of death or the cranial capacity of an individual already disappeared. But a trace printed in the mud, and petrified afterwards with the passage of mill…
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