On Nov. 28, a team led by Kevin Hatala, an anthropologist from Chatham University in Shadyside, Pittsburgh, made a groundbreaking discovery that influenced the way scientists now think about early human interactions.
Collaborating with other researchers from the United Kingdom and Kenya, Hatala and his team examined sets of fossilized footprints present near the Turkana Basin in Northern Kenya. Coming from the early Pleistocene epoch, these footprints provided evidence of both the Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei species, who would have moved through the area roughly 1.5 million years ago. By looking at the proximity between the footprints of both species and the times when both sets of footprints may have been left, the researchers were able to conclude that both of these species may have been able to interact with one another.
Based on past skeletal evidence, researchers already felt confident that these two species had existed in the same areas, this new evidence now also indicates that they may have directly interacted with each other. Prior to this discovery, there had been no evidence supporting the idea that these two, or any other early human species, had been able to mesh in this way.
Although, in a way, this discovery just leads to even more questions, one of the most pressing questions being, if these species had interacted with each other, what was the nature of these interactions? Neil Roach, a researcher on Hatala’s team from Harvard University, noted that the footprints being present in a lakeside environment could shed some light on this issue. The footprint’s proximity to a body of water and routing frequency in the area may indicate the two species went to the basin to gather resources such as food and water. If that is the case, researchers would like to know how this need for resources impacted the way these species dealt with each other.
Currently, the researchers believe that there was low to neutral competition between H. erectus and P. boisei because of the other evidence indicating that these two species had adapted to consume different types of foods in their diets. However, they did note that it’s possible that as shifts in the regio n’s climate caused this environment to change, resources may have become more scarce, causing the two species to compete more directly for them. In fact, they even believe that this competition and the way both of these species adapted to these shifts may be responsible for the extinction of the Paranthropus genus and the survival of the Homo genus.
That being said, before any conclusions can be made on this matter, more research is needed. By examining fossil evidence that could tell us more about the behavior of both species and the exact nature of their environments, we could be more certain in making these claims and better understand exactly how these two species interacted before, during, and after these climatic changes occurred.
Still, these footprints and the researchers that analyzed them have been able to tell us a lot about the way humans had lived on this Earth long before us. I find it fascinating to imagine what life may have looked like back then and to think about what evidence people 1.5 million years from now may find about us. By learning about and understanding humanity’s past, we can starting improving not only our present, but also our future.
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