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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2009
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Ancient Footprints Reveal Path to Humanity

Tracks in Kenya are 1.5 million years old

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(Newser) – Scientists have unearthed ancient footprints that reveal humanity's ancestors walked with a modern stride as long as 1.5 million years ago, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. Researchers believe the tracks—left beside a muddy river bank in Kenya and preserved when the river changed course—belong to human ancestor Homo erectus, and provide vital clues to how humanity began.

Scientists say the prints were made by creatures that walked exclusively upright on feet much like our own, allowing them to travel easily across open spaces and even to run long distances. The researchers say they were stunned to uncover such familiar-looking footprints in the ancient sediment. "These could quite easily have been made on the beach today," said one archaeologist.

Professor Matthew Bennett of Bournemouth University poses on the main fossil footprint trail in Ileret, Kenya.
Professor Matthew Bennett of Bournemouth University poses on the main fossil footprint trail in Ileret, Kenya.   (AFP/Getty Images)
This undated image, courtesy of Professor Matthew Bennett of Bournemouth University, shows a fossil footprint in Ileret, Kenya believed to be 1.5 million years old.
This undated image, courtesy of Professor Matthew Bennett of Bournemouth University, shows a fossil footprint in Ileret, Kenya believed to be 1.5 million years old.   (AFP/Getty Images)
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It was kind of creepy excavating these things to see all of a sudden something that looks so dramatically like something that you yourself could have made 20 minutes earlier in some kind of wet sediment just next to the site. - archaeologist David Braun

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7 comments
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The_Nihilist
Feb 28, 09 3:23 AM CST
Homo erectus? How do these names get approval? Reply
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IN RESPONSE:
gregconquest
Feb 28, 09 4:39 AM CST
They walked erect. What were you thinking?
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IN RESPONSE:
The_Nihilist
Mar 1, 09 1:17 AM CST
You know exactly what I was thinking.
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DarkFrancis
Feb 28, 09 7:55 AM CST
1.5 million? How can that BE? Surely every right-thinking person knows we've only been around for about 6000 years! And, according to a former work colleague, science has only existed for about 100! Which means Pythagoras, Eratosthenes, Euclid, not to mention Newton, Galileo, da Vinci etc. must have just been messin' around. Reply
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IN RESPONSE:
Rob
Feb 28, 09 8:20 AM CST
Science as investigation is old, but the ecientific methos is relativly new.
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