"This is the first time that we know they were living alongside each other," said Kevin Hatala, a paleoanthropologist at Chatham University who helped excavate the footprints and analyze them using 3D documentation. "They probably would have been aware of one another's existence, living in such close proximity to one another. That raises some interesting questions about competition and coexistence."
By analyzing the shape of the feet that left the imprints, the study's authors found that the sets of tracks belonged to individuals from different hominin species. "They appear to be walking in slightly different fashions. They're both bipedal, but they have different foot structures, which indicates that they may have locomoted in unique ways."
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