http://www.ansa.it/english/news/science_tecnology/2016/06/15/homo-erectus-footprints-found-3_6c1d22b8-4e95-4e9f-8ac5-c82c198beec3.html
Homo erectus footprints found (3) In Eritrea
Redazione ANSA
ROME
15 June 2016
14:16
NEWS
(ANSA) - Rome, June 15 - Italian and Eritrean researchers on Wednesday found the first footprints of 'homo erectus', a key predecessor of modern man.
The footprints, left 800,000 years ago in the sand of a lake that is now part of an Eritrean desert, were found by palaeontologists from Rome's La Sapienza University and the National Museum of Eritrea, at the Aalad-Amo site in the east of the country.
Dig coordinator Alfredo Coppa said the footprints would likely say a lot about a key species in the history of human evolution.
The footprints are very similar to those of modern man and could provide important information about our ancestors' foot anatomy and locomotion: they show details of the toes and the sole of the foot that made them efficient at walking and running.
The footprints are aligned in a north-south direction the same as hoof prints left by extinct antelopes and are preserved in a sediment of hardened sand, probably exposed to flooding.
This suggests that the area was a lake surrounded by savannah. The discovery is the first time that footprints from the mid-Pleistocene era have been found, a very important period of transition in human evolution, in which human species with larger brains and more modern bodies than homo erectus developed.
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ROME
Italians find first footprints of homo erectus (2)In Eritrea
http://www.lagazzettadelmezzogiorno.it/news/english/768383/Italians-find-first-footprints-of-homo.html
Received on Wed Jun 15 2016 - 13:01:04 EDT