Early Hominin Footprints May Reveal Children’s Activities

POOLE, ENGLAND—The Independent reports that footprints left some 700,000 years ago at Ethiopia’s site of Melka Kunture offer insight into the parenting techniques of Homo heidelbergensis. The footprints suggest a group made up of adults and children had been at the site, where stone tools and the butchered remains of a hippo were also found. “Clearly the adult members of the groups were getting on with normal activities,” said Matthew Bennett of Bournemouth University. He says children tagged along with the adult hunting group, and thus learned firsthand about toolmaking, hunting, and butchering from an early age. For more, go to “Our Tangled Ancestry.”