Professor Brian Richmond was featured on the February 26 edition of NPR’s (National Public Radio) “All Things Considered” discussing an article he co-wrote in the February 27 Science reporting the discovery of a set of 1.5 million-year-old human ancestor footprints in Kenya. These footprints show the earliest direct evidence of modern human bipedalism.
Ancient hominin footprints are extremely rare and the new prints fromthe site of Koobi Fora are the second oldest in the world after the 3.7-million year-old prints in Laetoli, Tanzania, making them one of the most important discoveries regarding the evolution of human walking.
The international team determined that the shapes of these prints significantly are more like those formed by modern humans compared to the prints from Laetoli, Tanzania, which are dated to 3.75 million years and are believed to have been formed by Australopithecus afarensis.
The article, "Early Hominin Foot Morphology Based on 1.5-Million-Year-Old Footprints from Ileret, Kenya", is available online here
"All Things Considered" is available for listening via the National Public Radio website here and iTunes.
Associate Professor of Anthropology Brian Richmond is the graduate advisor for the Hominid Paleobiology Doctoral Program and associate editor of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
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