The Koobi Fora Research Project, led by Louise Leakey, has unveiled significant findings from Lake Turkana in Kenya. The team, comprising researchers from Stony Brook University and the Turkana Basin Institute, along with international collaborators from Kenya, the United States, and the UK, has published a study in Science detailing a ~1.5-million-year-old fossil footprint site.
These footprints offer direct evidence of two extinct human ancestors sharing the same landscapes. "Fossil footprints provide us a clear picture of that instant in time, 1.5 million years ago," said Leakey. The footprints reveal different patterns of anatomy and locomotion for Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei.
The discovery was made in 2021 during an excavation led by Leakey and Cyprian Nyete. Richard Loki identified the first hominin footprint at the site. Subsequently, Kevin Hatala from Chatham University joined efforts to excavate the footprint surface in July 2022.
This study marks the first direct evidence of these two species coexisting and possibly interacting on the same landscape. Kay Behrensmeyer from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History highlighted potential further discoveries: "Documenting the strata revealed that there are many more trackway surfaces that could be excavated nearby."
The research was funded by organizations including the National Geographic Society and U.S. National Science Foundation.