Logo
Prev
Bookmark
Rotate
Print
Next
Contents
All Pages
Related Articles
Browse Issues
Help
Search
Home
'
National Geographic : 1979 Apr
Contents
"They looked so human, so modern, to be found in tuffs so old," says foot print expert Dr. Louise Robbins of the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. The best-preserved print (left) shows the raised arch, rounded heel, pronounced ball, and forward pointing big toe necessary for walking erect. Pressures exerted along the foot attest to a striding gait. Scuff marks appear in the toe area, and a fossilized burrow seams the footprint. Fossilized bones of 22 individuals have been found in the vicinity of Laetoli, so named after the Masai word for the area's red lily. Both bones and footprint tuffs lay sandwiched between strata dated by potassium argon tests to about 3.6 and 3.8 mil lion years ago. Teeth, jaws, and skull fragments from adults, as well as ribs and hand, arm, and leg bones from a 5-year-old (below, right), may help determine the trail makers' species. Similar in type to later specimens dis covered by Dr. Donald C. Johanson in Ethiopia, the bones belong to what Dr. Leakey and others consider the earliest hominids yet found. Dr. Johanson classifies both finds as Aus tralopithecusafarensis. PETERJONES;TIM WHITE(BELOW) National Geographic,April 1979 452
Links
Archive
1979 May
1979 Mar
Navigation
Previous Page
Next Page