Footprint evidence for locomotor diversity and shared habitats among early Pleistocene hominins

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hatala, Kevin G.; Roach, Neil T.; Behrensmeyer, Anna K.; Falkingham, Peter L.; Gatesy, Stephen M.; Williams-Hatala, Erin Marie; Feibel, Craig S.; Dalacha, Ibrae; Kirinya, Martin; Linga, Ezekiel; Loki, Richard; Alkoro, Apolo; Longaye, Malmalo; Lonyericho, Emmanuel; Loyapan, Iyole; Nakudo, Nyiber; Nyete, Cyprian; Leakey, Louise N.
• 署名单位: Chatham University; Max Planck Society; Harvard University; Smithsonian Institution; Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History; Smithsonian Institution; Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History; Liverpool John Moores University; Brown University; George Washington University; Rutgers University System; Rutgers University New Brunswick; Rutgers University System; Rutgers University New Brunswick; State University of New York (SUNY) System; Stony Brook University; State University of New York (SUNY) System; Stony Brook University
• 刊物名称: SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0036-12824
• DOI: 10.1126/science.ado5275
• 发表日期: 2024-11-29
• 页码: 1004-1010
• 关键词: fossil hominins; turkana-basin; homo-erectus; body-mass; EVOLUTION; ileret; australopithecus; pliopleistocene; morphology; kenya

摘要

For much of the Pliocene and Pleistocene, multiple hominin species coexisted in the same regions of eastern and southern Africa. Due to the limitations of the skeletal fossil record, questions regarding their interspecific interactions remain unanswered. We report the discovery of footprints (similar to 1.5 million years old) from Koobi Fora, Kenya, that provide the first evidence of two different patterns of Pleistocene hominin bipedalism appearing on the same footprint surface. New analyses show that this is observed repeatedly across multiple contemporaneous sites in the eastern Turkana Basin. These data indicate a sympatric relationship between Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei, suggesting that lake margin habitats were important to both species and highlighting the possible influence of varying levels of coexistence, competition, and niche partitioning in human evolution.