Snapshots of human anatomy, locomotion, and behavior from Late Pleistocene footprints at Engare Sero, Tanzania

Fossil hominin footprints preserve data on a remarkably short time scale compared to most other fossil evidence, offering snapshots of organisms in their immediate ecological and behavioral contexts. Here, we report on our excavations and analyses of more than 400 Late Pleistocene human footprints from Engare Sero, Tanzania. The site represents the largest assemblage of footprints currently known from the human fossil record in Africa. Speed estimates show that the trackways reflect both walking and running behaviors. Estimates of group composition suggest that these footprints were made by a mixed-sex and mixed-age group, but one that consisted of mostly adult females. One group of similarly oriented trackways was attributed to 14 adult females who walked together at the same pace, with only two adult males and one juvenile accompanying them. In the context of modern ethnographic data, we suggest that these trackways may capture a unique snapshot of cooperative and sexually divided foraging behavior in Late Pleistocene humans

Footprint evidence of early hominin locomotor diversity at Laetoli, Tanzania

Bipedal trackways discovered in 1978 at Laetoli site G, Tanzania and dated to 3.66 million years ago are widely accepted as the oldest unequivocal evidence of obligate bipedalism in the human lineage1-3. Another trackway discovered two years earlier at nearby site A was partially excavated and attributed to a hominin, but curious affinities with bears (ursids) marginalized its importance to the paleoanthropological community, and the location of these footprints fell into obscurity3-5. In 2019, we located, excavated and cleaned the site A trackway, producing a digital archive using 3D photogrammetry and laser scanning. Here we compare the footprints at this site with those of American black bears, chimpanzees and humans, and we show that they resemble those of hominins more than ursids. In fact, the narrow step width corroborates the original interpretation of a small, cross-stepping bipedal hominin. However, the inferred foot proportions, gait parameters and 3D morphologies of footprints at site A are readily distinguished from those at site G, indicating that a minimum of two hominin taxa with different feet and gaits coexisted at Laetoli

Stratigraphy, sedimentology, and paleontology of the Upper Triassic Solite Quarry, North Carolina and Virginia

This volume includes 10 field guides that explore the diverse geology of the southern and central Appalachians. These guides examine both ancient rocks and modern landscape processes, highlighting new research ideas regarding these old terranes. Three guides focus on the geology of the Appalachian Plateau and Valley and Ridge, considering topics such as the enigmatic Eocene igneous rocks, the gas-rich Marcellus and Millboro Shales, and new models for karst formation. The 2011 M5.8 Mineral, Virginia, earthquake literally shook up our understanding of the Piedmont and two guides focus on new research in the epicentral region. Two guides take in the Paleozoic to Proterozoic geology of the Blue Ridge province. The volume is rounded out by three guides focused on Mesozoic geology, including the world-class Lagerstätte fauna in the Dan River basin, a unique uranium deposit at Coles Hill, Virginia, and the tectonics of the Scottsville Basin. - Publisher's websit