Researchers Just Found 3.6-Million-Year-Old Footprints in Africa — Here’s What They Tell Us About Early Humans

Bipedalism, or the ability to walk upright and on two legs, is one of the most unique and important traits of humans. It allowed us to use our hands freely to craft and utilize tools in our daily lives, along with many other functionalities. This is why it is a very significant milestone in our evolutionary past.

However, little did we know that the hominin species could already walk upright 3.6 million years ago, which is what the footprints found in Tanzania imply. Scientists found these footprints in the place where we, the modern human species, originated. This makes it more likely that they were our distant ancestors.

Let’s find out and explore what this fossilized trace from millions of years ago could tell us about early humans and the world they lived in. Are they that much different than us, or are we more the same than we ever realized?

Where Were the Footprints Found?

The footprints were found in Africa, where our ancestors are thought to have evolved, specifically, in a site in East Africa near a lake and a volcano, on Laetoli, Tanzania. The location is a very important part of the discovery, as it could hold a lot of information about the person who left these trails.

Mary Leakey and her team discovered them in hard volcanic ash. It means that it was a soft, clay-like ground before, which is how the footprints were created when hominins walked on it, and imprinted their trace. Then, to survive for almost 3.6 million years, an ash covered it right after a volcanic eruption, preserving the footprints.

This is a specific set of conditions at the Laetoli site in Tanzania that created the perfect circumstances that allowed a literal footprint to survive and withstand the forces of time. Without this exact pattern, the footprints they left behind would have been gone in an instant.

Image Credits/Read more: Science in the Classroom

What Do the Footprints Tell Us About Walking?

OLDEST Footprints Ever Discovered? Where Are They Located, Laetoli Or Trachilos?

Homo sapiens existed just about 200,000 to 300,000 years ago, but these footprints are over 3.6 million years old. It tells us that early hominins, who are our distant ancestors, already learned to walk upright, long before the modern human species arrived.

According to the experts, the pattern is already very reminiscent of how humans today walk. The footprint clearly began with heel first, then toe motion in each step. This might seem like a small detail, but it gives us clues that they are not just walking with a hunched back over like some apes.

Instead, this pattern of their footprint tells us that they are walking upright with straight legs. Just think about it for a second, this was over 3,600,000 years ago.

What Do the Footprints Show About the People Who Made Them?

The footprints found in Tanzania were not just from one person; several animal species were also observed, but more importantly is that scientists believe they found prints from at least three people.

It is possibly from one male, a number of females, and one child. The direction of the footprints also suggests they are walking together, heading in the same direction. This is a very important discovery as it tells us that even back then, our ancestors were already social creatures that travelled together with their families to most likely find food or other resources to survive.

Read more: Time

Why These Footprints Are Amazing Clues

The Laetoli Footprints | The Oldest Human Ancestor Footprints

Footprints are very rare to find, let alone a 3.6 million-year-old one, because they require a specific set of conditions that need to happen at just the right moment in the right order.

At the Laetoli site, 3.6 million years ago, a volcanic eruption happened, followed by a light rainfall that mixed with the ashes, creating a muddy, soft-clay-like ground. Then a group of hominins walked by on it, leaving their trails.

After just a few moments, another eruption happened that dropped another layer of ash into the footprints before winds or other natural causes could erase them. Finally, it hardened into a rock that could survive the test of time thanks to many chemical changes and the removal of moisture.

This is what we could infer about what happened just from finding a bunch of footprints. Despite how insignificant a footprint could look, these are amazing clues that give us insights into how our ancestors lived back then.

Author's Final Thoughts

The 3.6-million-year-old footprints at Laetoli are powerful evidence that our ancestors already walked upright, long before our species, Home sapiens, existed on the planet. They show how these early hominins moved and walked together side by side, just like how we do today, millions of years later.

Read next: Why Did Our Ancestors Leave the Forests While Apes Stayed? — New Theory Suggests This Is How It Sparked Our Evolution

References & Further Reading

Masao, F. T., et al. (2016). New footprints from Laetoli (Tanzania) provide evidence for marked body size variation in early hominins. eLife. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.19568

McNutt, E. J., et al. (2021). Footprint evidence of early hominin locomotor diversity at Laetoli, Tanzania. Nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04187-7

Hatala, K. G., Demes, B., & Richmond, B. G. (2016). Laetoli footprints reveal bipedal gait biomechanics different from those of modern humans and chimpanzees. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2016.0235

White, T. D. (1980). Evolutionary implications of Pliocene hominid footprints. Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.208.4440.175

Raichlen, D. A., & Gordon, A. D. (2017). Interpretation of footprints from Site S confirms human-like bipedal biomechanics in Laetoli hominins. Journal of Human Evolution. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248417300118