What Can the Illeret Footprints Tell Us?
From The Observatory
Source: Dig Labs Project
What can a footprint tell us about a species that vanished 1.5 million years ago?
We invite readers to contribute to this collaborative research page.
We invite readers to contribute to this collaborative research page.
"https://observatory.wiki/What_Can_the_Illeret_Footprints_Tell_Us%3F What Can the Illeret Footprints Tell Us?" by Dig Labs Contributors is licensed by the Observatory under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
For permissions requests beyond the scope of this license, please see Observatory.wiki’s Reuse and Reprint Rights guidance.
Send us a note about this articleDonate to the Observatory
SOURCE
Dig Labs Project
Introduction
What can a footprint tell us about a species that vanished 1.5 million years ago? In the mudflats of Ileret, Kenya, researchers have unearthed a "trace fossil" discovery of unprecedented scale: 97 footprints left by more than 20 Homo erectus individuals. They are the oldest direct evidence of a modern human-like bipedal gait. The trail reveals a bombshell: these individuals traveled in cooperative, multi-male groups—a behavior once thought to be unique to later humans.
