Fossil footprints in Tanzania shed light on the first instances when early humans began walking upright

Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Get our free Health Check email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. The site in Tanzania, where five consecutive footprints known as “The Laetoli Footprints” were discovered in 1970, was dated in previous studies to more than three million years ago. While earlier research found that some of these fossil footprints were made by a human ancestor hominin species walking upright on two legs about 3.6 million years ago, the other marks in nearby sites fell into obscurity as a few resembled bear prints. After assessing nearly 50 hours of footage of four semi-wild juvenile black bears at a rescue and rehabilitation centre in New Hampshire, the scientists found that they walked on two legs less than 1 per cent of the time, making it unlikely for a bear to have made the Laetoli footprints. Comparing the foot proportions, morphology, and possible gait unravelled at Site A with the footprints of other human ancestors like Australopithecus afarensis uncovered at nearby sites, the scientists say there were different hominin species walking bipedally on this landscape “but in different ways on different feet.” However, they are unsure which species of early humans may have made the prints at Site A.