From Newsgroup: sci.anthropology.paleo


https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03907-z

Some 1.5 million years ago, two ancient
species crossed paths on a lake shore in
Kenya. Their footprints in the mud were
frozen in time and lay undiscovered until
2021.

Now, analysis of the impressions reveals
that they belonged to Homo erectus, a
forebear of modern humans, and the more
distant relative Paranthropus boisei. The
two individuals walked through the lake
area within hours or days of each other rCo
leaving the first direct record of
different archaic hominin species
coexisting in the same place.

rCLThis is the first snapshot we have of
those two species living on the same
immediate landscape, potentially
interacting with one another,rCY says study
co-author Kevin Hatala, a
palaeoanthropologist at Chatham
University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The study was published in Science on 28
November.

The prints preserved details about the
individuals, including the height of
their foot arches, the shape of their
toes and their walking patterns.
...



https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adt8033
Contemporary hominin locomotor diversity

Abstract
This year marks the 50th anniversary
of the discovery of the renowned rCLLucyrCY
skeleton in Ethiopia. Remarkably
preserved and dated to 3.2 million
years ago (Ma), rCLLucyrCY confirmed that
the ability to walk on two legs
(bipedalism), not large brains or small
teeth, was one of the first major hominin
adaptations. In the ensuing 50 years, the
number of accepted hominin species tripled,
and several studies revealed different
types of bipedalism in hominins. However,
whether such distinct types of locomotion
occurred simultaneously and in the same
location remained unclear. On page 1004
of this issue, Hatala et al. describe
1.5- Ma footprints from two hominin
species at the site of Koobi Fora, Kenya,
that indicate different types of
bipedalism at the same time and place.
The findings help to elucidate the
complex evolutionary history of hominin
locomotion and suggest that different
hominins may have interacted across
habitats.


https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ado5275
Footprint evidence for locomotor diversity
and shared habitats among early Pleistocene
hominins

EditorrCOs summary
It is now well accepted that hominin
evolution is a story of many lineages
existing contemporaneously. Evidence
for this pattern has mostly come from
fossils being dated to similar time
periods. Hatala et al. describe hominid
footprints from 1.5 million years ago
in the Turkana Basin in Kenya that were
made by two different species within
hours or days of each other (see the
Perspective by Harcourt-Smith). Analyses
showed that the footprints were made by
individuals with different gaits and
stances, and the authors hypothesize
these to be Homo erectus and Paranthropus
boilei. Although fossils of both species
occur in the area, these footprints show
that they coexisted and likely interacted.


Abstract
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 Homo erectus
and Paranthropus boisei, 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.




--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2