PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA—Courthouse News Service reports that a new study of 21 fossilized footprints found in Kenya on the ancient shoreline of Lake Turkana in 1978 suggests that the hominins who left them, identified as Paranthropus boisei, may have been six feet tall and weighed about 165 pounds. Members of P. boisei are also known for their powerful jaws and large teeth. Kevin Hatala of Chatham University said that this estimate of their stature is larger than previous ones for these hominins, who left these prints some 1.43 million years ago, when Homo erectus also lived in the region. Hatala and his colleagues now think these individuals were a group of eight males who were traveling together. “They may have lived in large groups, where males competed for mates, but also tolerated each other at times for safety in a dangerous environment,” Hatala surmised. To read more about recent research on P. boisei, go to "The Path Not Taken."
