A newly exposed silt slab (TS-2) at Lake Turkana, Kenya, preserved as trace fossils after rapid burial, contains hominin footprints alongside bird and mammal tracks. 3D analyses reveal two recurring locomotor patterns—most consistent with Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei—crossing the same surface, likely within hours of each other. The find, published in Science, offers rare behavioral evidence of movement and possible interactions that bones or tools alone cannot show.
Rare Lake Turkana Footprints Suggest Two Extinct Human Species Shared a Shoreline
A newly exposed silt slab (TS-2) at Lake Turkana, Kenya, preserved as trace fossils after rapid burial, contains hominin footprints alongside bird and mammal tracks. 3D analyses reveal two recurring locomotor patterns—most consistent with Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei—crossing the same surface, likely within hours of each other. The find, published in Science, offers rare behavioral evidence of movement and possible interactions that bones or tools alone cannot show.
06:09, 05.11.2025Science
New footprint slab at Lake Turkana preserves two hominins on the same surface
Researchers working at Lake Turkana in Kenya have uncovered a remarkably well-preserved thin silt layer, designated layer TS-2, that was rapidly buried beneath volcanic ash more than 1.5 million years ago. The quick burial protected a shallow lakeshore surface and turned a variety of impressions into trace fossils, including hominin footprints, wading-bird tracks, bovid hoofprints and prints from horse-like animals.
Within the hominin evidence the team mapped a continuous footprint trackway attributed to a single individual plus three other discrete hominin prints. Using three-dimensional imaging and computer analysis, the investigators identified two recurring, distinguishable locomotor patterns across the surface that they interpret as signatures of two different hominins—most consistent with Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei.
Craig Feibel (Rutgers), a contributing author on the paper published in Science, said: "This proves beyond any question that not only one, but two different hominins were walking on the same surface, literally within hours of each other."
The clearest evidence comes not from single prints but from the repeated pairing of two distinct gait patterns appearing side by side across TS-2 and on other nearby Pleistocene surfaces of comparable age in the Koobi Fora region. The team's 3D model captures impressions crossing at roughly a right angle—an intersection frozen in time that provides a rare behavioral snapshot.
Kevin Hatala, the study's lead author, emphasized the unique value of trace fossils: "With these kinds of data, we can see how living individuals, millions of years ago, were moving around their environments and potentially interacting with each other, or even with other animals. That's something that we can't really get from bones or stone tools."
It is important to note that footprints alone rarely provide definitive species identifications. Rather, the consistent locomotor signatures combined with the regional fossil record and precise volcanic layering strengthen the interpretation that two different hominin taxa used the same shoreline in a very short time span.
Beyond taxonomic implications, the discovery highlights movement as a vital element of survival in the Pleistocene—efficient travel increased access to water, food and shelter and shaped encounters that sometimes led to cooperation and sometimes to competition.
As imaging techniques and fieldwork methods continue to improve, trace fossils like the TS-2 slab will play an increasingly important role in reconstructing the behavior, movement and ecological interactions of early hominins.