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At least 2 hominin species lived at Laetoli site 3.6 million years ago - Ars Technica

At least 2 hominin species lived at Laetoli site 3.6 million years ago - Ars Technica

At least 2 hominin species lived at Laetoli site 3.6 million years ago - Ars Technica
Dec 06, 2021 1 min, 21 secs

The first evidence of human relatives walking on two feet comes from about 70 footprints left by at least two Australopithecus afarensis walking across soft volcanic ash about 3.6 million years ago.

Not far from that site, another set of footprints reveals that Lucy and her kin may have lived alongside another bipedal hominin species, one that moved very differently.

Ohio University anthropologist Ellison McNutt and colleagues recently revisited Site A and its five footprints, using Leakey and her colleagues' field notes to find the site (it's not far from a trail of equally old elephant tracks).

afarensis, chimpanzees, and bears, McNutt and colleagues concluded that the footprints belonged to a hominin—but a member of a different species than Lucy and her kin.

McNutt and colleagues don't know which hominin species might have left the five footprints at Site A, and they don't offer any hypotheses in their recent paper about it.

However, the footprints offer some clues about how the individual moved and what its feet looked like.

And the hominin who left the tracks at Site A had an even more thumb-like big toe than A.

Based on the impressions left behind, the Site A hominin may have had a more flexible, ape-like midfoot than A.

"A minimum of 2 hominin taxa with different feet and gaits co-existed at Laetoli," wrote McNutt and colleagues.

And, despite its chimp-like feet, this hominin didn't actually walk like a modern ape.

If the hominin at Site A was able to walk this way, say McNutt and colleagues, it must have had one or both of two key features that help modern humans walk upright.

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