title: Footprints reveal direct evidence of group behavior and locomotion in Homo erectus.
abstract: Bipedalism is a defining feature of the human lineage. Despite evidence that walking on two feet dates back 6-7 Ma, reconstructing hominin gait evolution is complicated by a sparse fossil record and challenges in inferring biomechanical patterns from isolated and fragmentary bones. Similarly, patterns of social behavior that distinguish modern humans from other living primates likely played significant roles in our evolution, but it is exceedingly difficult to understand the social behaviors of fossil hominins directly from fossil data. Footprints preserve direct records of gait biomechanics and behavior but they have been rare in the early human fossil record. Here we present analyses of an unprecedented discovery of 1.5-million-year-old footprint assemblages, produced by 20+ Homo erectus individuals. These footprints provide the oldest direct evidence for modern human-like weight transfer and confirm the presence of an energy-saving longitudinally arched foot in H. erectus. Further, print size analyses suggest that these H. erectus individuals lived and moved in cooperative multi-male groups, offering direct evidence consistent with human-like social behaviors in H. erectus.
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany.|Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, Department of Anthropology, The George Washington University, 800 22nd St., NW, Suite 6000, Washington, DC 20052, USA.
authors.forename: Kevin G
authors.initials: KG
authors.lastname: Hatala
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 11 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.|Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY 10024, USA.
authors.forename: Neil T
authors.initials: NT
authors.lastname: Roach
authors.affiliation: Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, Department of Anthropology, The George Washington University, 800 22nd St., NW, Suite 6000, Washington, DC 20052, USA.
authors.forename: Kelly R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Ostrofsky
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, James Madison University, MSC 7801, Harrisonburg, VA 22807, USA.
authors.forename: Roshna E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Wunderlich
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 11 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
authors.forename: Heather L
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Dingwall
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV 89154, USA.
authors.forename: Brian A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Villmoare
authors.affiliation: Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, Department of Anthropology, The George Washington University, 800 22nd St., NW, Suite 6000, Washington, DC 20052, USA.|Department of Anatomy, Midwestern University, 555 31st St., Downers Grove, IL 60515, USA.
authors.forename: David J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Green
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA.
authors.forename: John W K
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Harris
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany.|Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, Department of Anthropology, The George Washington University, 800 22nd St., NW, Suite 6000, Washington, DC 20052, USA.
authors.forename: David R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Braun
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany.|Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY 10024, USA.
authors.forename: Brian G
authors.initials: BG
authors.lastname: Richmond
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena / Q000502:physiology; D049628:Body Size / Q000502:physiology; D005528:Foot / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D005580:Fossils; D005684:Gait / Q000502:physiology; D015186:Hominidae / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008124:Locomotion / Q000502:physiology*; D012919:Social Behavior; D016138:Walking / Q000502:physiology