(ORDO NEWS) — About 3.7 million years ago, someone who walked on two legs left mysterious footprints in an area covered with a thick layer of volcanic ash. This site is located where modern Tanzania is located. The prints were perfectly preserved in the ashes and eventually turned into rock. They were found in 1978, but then experts suggested that a bear had left them.
Anthropologists from the University of California then added that it will not be possible to establish exactly who the prints belong to until they are completely cleaned. Ohio University anthropologist Allison McNutt and his colleagues were able to clean up the prints and then compared them to the movements of bears, humans, and chimpanzees.
The analysis showed that they were left by bipedal primates, the species of which is currently unknown to science. It is worth noting that the footprints were different from those left in the immediate vicinity by the hominids.
A total of 18,400 different prints were found on the Laetoli trail. They remained after animals walked in this area, including hyenas, ostriches, giraffes. Also, some of the tracks belong to hominids, who moved in exactly the same way as modern people.
Further, experts conducted additional research and found that the prints in Zones G and S were left by a representative of Australopithecus, Australopithecus afarensis. It should be noted that the growth of most individuals of this species was in the range of 111-168 centimeters. If we talk about Zone A, then the traces were left by a shorter person, whose height did not exceed one meter.
The found prints very much resemble those of a bear, but at the same time the mysterious appearance had prints with a clear big toe, a wide heel, and a rather long second toe. Bears and chimpanzees have rather narrow heels.
Earlier we wrote that scientists believe that humanity has begun to die out.
And also recall that scientists discovered that the Earth began to rotate more slowly.
—
Online:
Contact us: [email protected]
Our Standards, Terms of Use: Standard Terms And Conditions.