Several trails of bipedal footprints, presumed to be those of Australopithecus afarensis, preserved in volcanic ash at Laetoli in northern Tanzania and dated to approximately 3.5 million years ago. They were discovered in 1978 by a team led by the Leakey family. The footprints indicate that the mechanism of weight and force transference through the early hominin foot was virtually identical to that of modern humans and suggest that two of the individuals, one larger and one smaller, walked together in stride and were close enough to have been touching. Lucy.
Copyright 1994-2007 Britannica Concise Encyclopedia.
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