Vor 1,5 Millionen Jahren kreuzten sich die Wege zweier Arten alter menschlicher Verwandter. Laut einer neuen Studie haben versteinerte Fußabdrücke in Kenia diesen Moment festgehalten.

More than 1.5 million years ago, [two different species of ancient human crossed paths](https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/28/science/fossilized-footprints-ancient-human-species/index.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit) on a lakeshore, perhaps locking eyes with each other. These early forerunners of Homo sapiens wandered in a landscape teeming with wildlife, including giant maribou storks that stood 2 meters (6.5 feet) tall.

A stunning discovery of fossilized footprints pressed into soft mud preserved the unexpected and extraordinary moment, suggesting that the two distinct types of hominin were able to live as neighbors sharing a habitat, rather than as competitors who kept to their own territory.

“It’s surprising that you would have two kinds of similarly sized, large-bodied hominin species on the same landscape,” said Kevin Hatala, first author [of a study](http://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ado5275) on the footprints that published in the journal Science on Thursday.