News Anthropology

Ancient footprints suggest a mysterious hominid lived alongside Lucy’s kind

The 3.66-million-year-old tracks from East Africa are unique, comparisons show

image of footprints from the Laetoli site compared to a 3-D contour map of the same area

A reanalysis of five footprints previously discovered at Tanzania’s Laetoli site, shown in a photo (top) and in a 3-D contour map (bottom), suggests they were made by a hominid species that lived alongside Lucy’s species around 3.66 million years ago.

Austin C. Hill and Catherine Miller

By Bruce Bower

An individual from an enigmatic hominid species strode across a field of wet, volcanic ash in what is now East Africa around 3.66