Not far from Olduvai George, a famous #fossil locality that was frequented by the Leakeys and colleagues, and a very important place where many lithic (stone) tools have been found, at first believed to be from Homo habilis, the first of our genus, but now is thought to be pushed back much farther in time to the Australopithecines.
Well, not far from here, on another excavation, Mary Leakey, wife of Louis Leakey, and discoverer of Zinj and many other important finds, hit the jackpot once again!
Amazingly, she came across a 75-ft trail of hominin footprints!!! It was unlike anything ever seen before!
So what does this mean? Well, as you can tell that is a two-legged, upright walking animal. This means they were #bipedal, which only has occurred habitually in those of our clade, the Hominid family. This was proof, that our ancestors were walking upright at least 3.7 mya. This was the proof that so many had been looking for!
Many more footprints of hominins from Africa and Eurasia have been found since, but there was something special about these, and they’re still is today.
After later excavation by the #Leakeys and Dr. Tim White, it was concluded that the footprints must belong to #Australopithecus #Afarensis, or the species “Lucy” belongs to. Discovered in 1976, this would change our view of humanity forever.
Look at that!
What do you think about this?
Do a little research on the topic and lets start a discussion! What do you think the #ignificance of this find is to our understanding of #Human #Origins?
World of Paleoanthropology 