About 1.5 million years ago, two different species of early man likely came within hours of passing each other on the shores of what is now known as Lake Turkana in Kenya. Two sets of footprints tracing each hominin’s path represent the first geological record of such an example, according to a report in Science.
Those footprints are part of a much larger picture that tells a more complete story of life there then.
“The footprint evidence provides a unique window into the occupation of the landscape over a short period of time,” says Craig Feibel, a geology professor at Rutgers and an author of the study. “We can actually see not only two different species of hominid, but all of these birds and antelope and everything else active on the lake margin 1.5 million years ago.”
A footprint hypothesized to have been created by a Homo erectus individual. (Credit: ...
