Overview of the excavated track surface (IMAGE)
Caption
Overview of the excavated track surface with a mix of deeper hippopotamus and antelope footprints and shallower hominin tracks visible.
An international team of researchers from the U.S. and Kenya analyzed a trove of fossilized footprints that were left behind by a troop of eight Paranthropus boisei hominins, first discovered nearly 50 years ago in northern Kenya by Kay Behrensmeyer, senior research geologist and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.
Behrensmeyer has conducted field work in this region since 1969. During the 1978 field season, some of her Kenyan colleagues were excavating a trench to examine different geologic layers when Behrensmeyer noticed a deep, rounded indentation in the rock—a hippo footprint. The crew excavated that layer and carefully brushed off the surface, revealing a pair of hominin tracks pressed into the ancient sediment.
The international research team used volcanic ash in the surrounding rock to date the trackway to the Early Pleistocene around 1.43 million years ago. At the time, the site was inhabited by a range of animals, including crocodiles, elephants and two different species of ancient human relatives, or hominins: P. boisei, a stocky species with heavy-duty teeth, and Homo erectus, a potential direct ancestor of humans today.
Credit
Kay Behrensmeyer, Smithsonian.
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