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?
Note to reader:
We hope you find this article useful—it’s an ongoing Observatory research project that will be updated.
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We hope you find this article useful—it’s an ongoing Observatory research project that will be updated.
If you have expertise or insight on the topic that you think could be useful, please send us a note.
Note to reader:
We hope you find this article useful—it’s an ongoing Observatory research project that will be updated.
If you have expertise or insight on the topic that you think could be useful, please send us a note.
We hope you find this article useful—it’s an ongoing Observatory research project that will be updated.
If you have expertise or insight on the topic that you think could be useful, please send us a note.
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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.
