Footprints Offer Evidence of Two Ancient Human Species Coexisting

We know other human species once roamed Earth, but this find is the first demonstration of two species directly coexisting — and Homo sapiens aren’t one of them.

Both Images are facial reconstructions Sourced from WikiCommons — On the left is P. boisei, and on the right is Homo erectus

We may be the last human species standing, but we’re far from the first to exist. Archaeologists have unearthed over a dozen human species who walked the Earth for millions of years before we came along. So, while we modern humans are alone now, our ancient Homo sapien relatives weren’t.

Analysis of skeletal remains tells us that our ancestors coexisted and even mated with other human species. Now, for the first time, scientists have discovered visible proof of co-hominin existence not from bones but from 1.52 million-year-old footprints. For reference, that’s roughly 1.2 million years before our Homo sapien ancestors entered the evolutionary scene.

Initial Discovery

The story behind a recent study published in the journal Science on November 28, 2024, begins during an excavation in 2021 led by paleoanthropologist Louise Leakey of the Turkana Basin Institute and Stony Brook University in New York.