Fossil footprints present: Different early people might have met | EUROtoday

Newly found footprints have now been in a position to show for the primary time: round 1.5 million years in the past, two completely different species of early people have been in the identical place inside a brief time period. Have they met?

Millions of years in the past, a number of species of early people lived in parallel on the African continent. However, whether or not they truly met might solely be assumed based mostly on bone finds that have been troublesome so far.

Now, newly found footprints present for the primary time that a minimum of two completely different species of early people have been in the identical place inside a brief time period. This is the results of the research by a world analysis crew from the USA, Kenya and Great Britain, which was printed within the journal Science.

A snapshot from the previous

There are a number of geological websites round Lake Turkana in northern Kenya. Bones that may be assigned to several types of early people have typically been discovered right here. For a very long time it was unclear how far aside in time they lived. A particular discover from the Koobi Fora Formation now brings mild into the darkness: fossilized footprints left by individuals and animals within the shallow water of a lake shore.

The particular factor about these impressions: Within a short while, sediments have been deposited over them, preserving them for eternity. For paleoanthropologists like Canadian Tracy Kivell, director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, that is a particularly invaluable discover.

This is the primary concrete indication that a minimum of two species of early people have been there on the identical time 1.5 million years in the past. In this manner, a brief second lasting a couple of hours to days was captured, says Kivell. “We can be sure that these two early humans and all the other animals were in this exact spot. I find that really exciting because it means that they may have encountered each other.”

Elaborate comparability with different footprints

When the footprints have been first uncovered, it was not but clear that they have been the traces of various early people. Using state-of-the-art 3D know-how, the worldwide analysis crew in contrast the prints not solely with different fossilized footprints, but additionally with the anatomy of recent people and that of chimpanzees.

Using this knowledge, the analysis crew was in a position to show that the footprints should come from two several types of early people – The man stood up and Paranthropus boisei.

Further footprints from the world led the researchers to conclude that the 2 early human species lived facet by facet for a minimum of 200,000 years and competed with one another little to no. Experts assume that they specialise in completely different habitats and meals sources.

Only climatic modifications most likely led to this Paranthropus boisei died out and The man stood upwho is taken into account a direct ancestor of recent people, lived on.

New insights into the lives of early people

In addition, the discover offers new insights into the residing circumstances, anatomy and evolution of early people 1.5 million years in the past. Paleoanthropologist Kivell sees this as a specific added worth of the research: “I consider it a milestone in the sense that we now know what information these footprints can give us and that we can now specifically search for it.”

So far we primarily know what the skulls and tooth of early people appeared like; there are hardly any finds from the neck down. The newly found footprints complement this information and supply invaluable insights into how the gait of the 2 early people differed, how they each usually frolicked on lake shores and which animals they may have encountered.