BY BRIAN THOMAS, PH.D. * | TUESDAY, APRIL 06, 2010

Sometime in the distant past, two or three individuals walked across wet volcanic ash, leaving a trail that continues to puzzle scientists. When the Laetoli footprints were discovered over 30 years ago in Tanzania, the tracks looked like they were caused by the feet of modern humans, which supposedly did not “emerge” until 2.5 million years ago. But the footprint-containing rock had been assigned an older age of 3.6 million years.

This problem was “solved” by attributing human-like bipedal features to australopiths. These extinct apes, like the famous “Lucy” fossil, were long considered ancestral to humans. This conclusion was reached, however, before the discovery of actual australopith fossil feet and before australopith remains were found in a rock layer dated at 2.2 million years. The australopith foot bones did not at all match those represented by the human-like Laetoli prints,1 and the australopith remains were dated as more recent than even known human remains, showing that australopiths had nothing to do with human evolution.2

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