Besides the subject being of enormous interest to me, when I see a picture or read an article like this I can't help but travel back in time.
I want to know what he looked like, what he thought, what he saw... I try to place myself there and imagine. I've done the same at every ancient ruin or place of history I have been too since I was a child.
Leaning against a pillar in Greece wondering who had done this before, stood right there; or what the Indian was like when discovering arrowheads in my adventures, his family, what he hunted. What was their life like? The mind boggles with excitement and images for me.
I came across this article, and the same visions appeared. That footprint was made by a living hominid that could reason, explore, change his world... an ancestor of mine perhaps?
"Earliest 'human footprints' found"
The earliest footprints showing evidence of modern human foot anatomy and gait have been unearthed in Kenya.
The 1.5-million-year-old footprints display signs of a pronounced arch and short, aligned toes, in contrast to older footprints.
The size and spacing of the Kenyan markings - attributed to Homo erectus - reflect the height, weight, and walking style of modern humans.
The findings have been published in the journal Science.
The footprints are not the oldest belonging to a member of the human lineage. That title belongs to the 3.7 million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis prints found in Laetoli, Tanzania, in 1978.
Those prints, however, showed comparatively flat feet and a significantly higher angle between the big toe and the other toes, representative of a foot still adapted to grasping.
Exactly how that more ape-like foot developed into its modern version has remained unclear.
The fossil record is distinctly lacking in foot and hand bones, according to lead author Matthew Bennett of Bournemouth University, UK.
"The reason is that carnivores like to eat hands and feet," Professor Bennett told BBC News.
"Once the flesh is gone there's a lot of little bones that don't get preserved, so we know very little about the evolution of hands and feet on our ancestors."
Read more.... (click on link)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7913375.stm
"The finding is a critical clue for mapping out the evolution of modern humans, both in terms of physiology and also how H. erectus fared in its environment."
"H. erectus was a great leap in evolution, showing increased variety of diet and of habitat, and was the first Homo species to make the journey out of Africa."
I wish I could travel in space and time and see these first steps out of Africa! How exciting, and what courage this must have taken. A whole world to discover... new and untouched.
Others would follow... dreaming had begun.
Thanks,
John S. (arizona)
Natural History, Dinosaurs, and Fossils
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Comments: 66
I, like you, also ponder these things.
Rob- I think there have been some older finds now since Lucy, but nothing even close to the nearly complete skeleton like hers. Mostly teeth, and from the same region of the Afar triangle of Aftrica out to Chad I think.
Thanks Rob.
Take care.
They have logical reasons for their speculations, yet it is still a speculation, so I treat it as such. Also too much extrapolation. No matter how good the reason for the conclusion, I just cannot bring myself to trust extrapolation as great as they are forced to make.
Nice article. This subject fascinates me to no end. Actually, trying to understand our origins drives me nuts. Soooooo much is still missing in this puzzle, I'm not sure we'll ever really know all the answers. A nice sized meteor or astroid will probably push us back to the beginning before we can find the answers, and earth's entire human population will have to start over from "ground zero" again.
I'm always sooooooo upbeat and positive, eh? LOL!
Nice to see Heidi back on Gather and posting again.
Toni- thanks so much, and yes I do... ;-)
Heidi- whoa, a blast from the past.... where have you been? Thanks for stopping by Heidi!
Sassy- thanks, yep pretty old... meow, LOL.
Savanna- thank you!
David- thanks for commenting, the puzzle gets a little clearer everyday though, but new questions always arise with new answers, LOL. Yeah, it is cool Heidi popped up, yay!
very cool!!
donna- glad you liked it, thanks.
Take care.
As a Christian, I do believe in evolution. How can one not? Plants, animals and the planet have evolved.... and continue to evolve. Why not humans?
God told man that man is created in His image. Okay...I can buy that. But man was told this at a time when they looked like us now. God has been always been here...forever. God never specified that man, at the time He reveiled to them, what form man was originally created. Adam and Eve, for all we know, could have looked like our prehistoric ancestors who walked slumped over. Our ancestors were gatherers of berries and other edible plants before they learned to kill and eat meat......Just like Adam and Eve. It wasn't until they learned to make weapons and kill for food that they became carnivors....much like how Adam and Eve learned after being cast out of the garden. It's our own arrogance that we assume that man was created in the 'perfect' form we are today and that our god looks like us.
Evolution is real. Man has evolved from a lower form. There are all kinds of evidence.
We must be visiting the same sites! I saw this article a couple of weeks ago, and like you, I'm fascinated with all things ancient.
Could be, I like anything to do with science/history, and always check that part of a news site.
Take care.