According to a study, two ancient human species that were thought to have unknown each other roamed side by side on the African plains 1.5 million years ago. Archaeologists have discovered four footprints preserved in mud in Kenya’s Turkana Basin, which play a crucial role in understanding human evolution.
Scientists say this discovery is the first direct evidence that completely different human species lived in the same place at the same time. The tracks also raise the possibility that the two groups may interact and influence each other, the Daily Mail writes.
The tracks belong to Paranthropus boisei, bipedal primates with smaller brains and broad, flat faces with massive teeth, and Homo erectus, which is more similar to modern humans and is believed to be our direct ancestor. The researchers noted that the foot structure of the former may not have been ideal for long-distance running, which may explain why the arch of the foot found in the latter was preserved in subsequent generations.
“One hypothesis suggests that Homo erectus was the first hominin to practice fully modern, human-like bipedal walking and endurance running, and that this adaptation set them on a different evolutionary trajectory,” the team said in the study.
Whether two people walked along the east side of Lake Turkana at the same time or a day or two apart, they likely knew about each other, said study co-author Kevin Hatala, a paleoanthropologist at Chatham University in Pittsburgh. existence. “They probably saw each other, they probably knew each other existed, and they probably influenced each other in some way,” he said.
Homo erectus appears to have walked much like modern humans, landing on his heel, shifting his weight onto the balls of his foot and toes, and then pushing off again. Paranthropus boisei also walked upright, but “it was different from anything we’ve seen before or anywhere else.”
The new discovery shows that P. boisei had heel strike, or thrust, methods that differed from Tanzanians and modern humans. P. boisei earned the nickname “Nutcracker Man” due to its powerful jaws and massive teeth attached to the large crest on its skull.
The unique walking characteristics suggest that the transition to bipedalism did not occur all at once. There were likely many ways ancient humans learned to walk, run, stumble, and slide on prehistoric mud slopes.
We previously wrote that the world’s oldest alphabet, which is 4,400 years old, was recently discovered. Read the details here.
Source: People Talk
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