Mysterious Hominin Left its Mark With 3.66-Million-Year-Old Footprint

Exposing the Big Game's avatarThe Extinction Chronicles

Volcanic ash buried evidence shortly after several individuals walked through a part of eastern Africa.

By Joshua Rapp LearnMay 18, 2022 2:30 PM

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/mysterious-hominin-left-its-mark-with-3-66-million-year-old-footprint?fbclid=IwAR1EubYnyWSNCIKJAJ7zQdebjISYZEs-tYm0xd7HPIzfVXWojLXxV-StDGc

Hominin footprint

(Credit: sabine_lj/Shutterstock)

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An unknown species of hominin that lived 3.66 million years ago left its only trace of a few dozen footprints in the mud that volcanic ash quickly buried. While these tracks have been known for nearly 50 years, new research reveals that the sets of footprints may belong to two distinct hominins that walked eastern Africa at the same time.

“That is the first, oldest unequivocal evidence for that — two hominins existing at the same place at the same time,” says Ellison McNutt, a biological anthropologist the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Original Findings

Researchers first discovered the tracks in the 1970s at the Laetoli site in…

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