Footprint evidence for locomotor diversity and shared habitats among early Pleistocene hominins
For much of the Pliocene and Pleistocene, multiple hominin species coexisted in the same regions of eastern and southern Africa. Due to the limitations of the skeletal fossil record, questions regarding their interspecific interactions remain unanswered. We report the discovery of footprints (~1.5 million years old) from Koobi Fora, Kenya, that provide the first evidence of two different patterns of Pleistocene hominin bipedalism appearing on the same footprint surface. New analyses show that this is observed repeatedly across multiple contemporaneous sites in the eastern Turkana Basin. These data indicate a sympatric relationship between <i>Homo erectus</i> and <i>Paranthropus boisei</i>, suggesting that lake margin habitats were important to both species and highlighting the possible influence of varying levels of coexistence, competition, and niche partitioning in human evolution.
Authors
- Stephen M. Gatesy (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1701-0320)
- Cyprian Nyete
- Anna K. Behrensmeyer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6857-368X)
- Peter Falkingham (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1856-8377)
- Erin Marie Williams‐Hatala (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9704-0011)
- Louise Leakey (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3420-6341)
- Kevin G. Hatala (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9131-5304)
- Martin Kirinya
- Craig S. Feibel
- Neil T. Roach
- Ezekiel Linga
- Richard Loki
- Apolo Alkoro
- Longaye
- Malmalo Longaye
- Emmanuel Lonyericho
- Iyole Loyapan
- Nyiber Nakudo
- Ibrae Dalacha
Institutions
- Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (US)
- Planetary Science Institute (US)
- Harvard University (US)
- George Washington University (US)
- Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute (US)
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (DE)
- Chatham University (US)
- Stony Brook University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Science
- Published
- 2024-11-28
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ado5275
- Citations
- 19
- Primary Topic
- Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 70.66
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- National Geographic Society
- National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation