Homo erectus footprints at Ileret
Huellas de Homo erectus en Ileret
- Date
- 2009 (huellas de c. 1.5 Ma) · confidence high
- Place
- Ileret, Koobi Fora, Turkana, Kenya
- Credited to
- Homo erectus (footprints); Matthew Bennett and team (discovery)
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Trails of footprints on lake silt, about 1.5 Ma old, with a plantar arch, an adducted big toe and a modern bipedal stride. They document the fully human gait of Homo erectus.
Published by Bennett and colleagues (Science, 2009); new trackways in 2016 suggest groups with several individuals. They are later than the Laetoli footprints (3.66 Ma), made by older hominins.
What it led to
- confirmation that modern locomotion already existed 1.5 Ma ago
- reconstruction of Homo erectus size and body mass from the footprint
- studies of group composition and behaviour from tracks (Ileret 2016)