1.5 million years ago, two ancient human ancestors lived near Lake Turkana in Kenya. Recently discovered fossil footprints reveal fascinating details about their way of walking and coexistence.
On the shores of a Kenyan lake, footprints preserved in the mud reveal an extraordinary encounter between two ancient human species: Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei. Discovered in 2021 at Koobi Fora, these fossilized tracks show that they shared the same environment and may have crossed paths regularly.
Homo erectus walked much like modern humans, while Paranthropus boisei had a unique gait with a more mobile big toe. These footprints are like a snapshot frozen in time, providing much more precise insights than traditional fossils. They also show that the evolution of human walking was not a single path but an adventure full of variations.