Study lead Kevin Hatala pointing out footprints of hominins. (IMAGE)
Caption
Study lead Kevin Hatala, an associate professor of biology at Chatham University in Pittsburgh and an associate researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, pointing out footprints of hominins among deeper hippopotamus tracks.
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’s team initially discovered the trackway in 1978 and is studying how the local geology preserved so many ancient footprints at the site.
The new track site reveals that adult male Paranthropus sometimes traveled in groups around the margins of Lake Turkana.
Credit
Kay Behrensmeyer, Smithsonian.
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