1.5 Million Year Footprints in Kenya

Archaic human footprint found in Ileret, Kenya
Several sets provide evidence of males travelling in groups.

Archaic human footprints were found near a lake in Ileret, Kenya in the early 2000's. The 22 footprints were discovered in two sedimentary layers dated at 1.51 to 1.53 million years ago, providing the oldest evidence of an essentially modern human–like foot anatomy, with a relatively adducted hallux, medial longitudinal arch, and medial weight transfer before push-off.

The study appears here. The report focused on the anatomy of these footprints and found that these archaic humans ambulated like modern humans. Neil Roach returned to Ileret and found more footprints — about 100. The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society in San Francisco. These prints represent multiple individuals walking in one direction along a lakeside, possibly hunting for antelope or wildebeest.

Jeremy DeSilva's research showed that Australopithecus lacked the large grasping toe typical of tree climbers, and its spine, pelvis, knees, and ankles were made for walking on two legs. DeSilva compared the ankle joint, the tibia and the talus fossils of human ancestors ("hominins") between 4.12 million to 1.53 million years old, he discovered that all of the ankle joints resembled those of modern humans rather than those of apes. Chimpanzees flex their ankles 45 degrees from normal resting position. This makes it possible for apes to climb trees with great ease. While walking, humans flex their ankles a maximum of 20 degrees. The human ankle bones are quite distinct from those of apes

“Upright walking is such a unique way of moving,” says DeSilva, assistant professor of anthropology at Boston University. “If you look across the animal world, locomotion is so diverse: things fly, things swim. Moving on two legs is odd."

Humans are unique in so many ways.

This discovery of a complete fourth metatarsal of A. afarensis at Hadar shows the deep, flat base and tarsal facets that "imply that its midfoot had no ape-like midtarsal break. These features show that the A. afarensis foot was functionally like that of modern humans." The February 2011 report was written by Carol Ward, William H. Kimbel, and Donald C. Johanson. Johanson worked with Mary Leakey on other significant finds.

Johanson and Leakey were scheduled to speak at a Nobel Symposium in Sweden in May 1978. The conference honored Mary Leakey, who received a medal from the King of Sweden for her scientific investigations. Leakey was embarrassed when Donald C. Johanson announced that his Afar Triangle finds were ape, and included Mary Leakey's 4 million year old Laetoli specimen (jaw bone LH4) from Tanzania as an exhibit. Leakey would have classified her Laetoli finds as Homo/human. She expressed her regret that “the Laetoli fellow is now doomed to be called Australopithecus afarensis.”

Archaic human footprints at Laetoli, Tanzania 

Mary Leakey’s 1979 discoveries of footprints in Tanzania added to the evidence that humans walked the earth over 3 million years ago. At Laetoli, about 25 miles south of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, Leakey discovered footprints of a man, woman and child created about 3.6 million years ago and preserved under falling ash from the nearby Sadiman volcano. The raised arch and rounded heel of the footprints showed that whoever left these footprints walked as humans walk today.

There is a great deal of ego gratification in naming a "new" stage in human evolution, but analysis of all these footprints indicates that these creatures were fully human. From over 3 million years to the present, there was been a limited amount of physical changes in humans. Devotion to the theory of evolutionary branching of ape and human from a common ancestor is not supported by the data.

Related reading: Was Lucy Human?; Study Reports a Whopping ‘23% of Our Genome’ Contradicts Standard Human-Ape Evolutionary Phylogeny,” Evolution News, June 3, 2011