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The theory behind how Homo erectus evolved has taken a giant leap with the discovery of the earliest footprints resembling human foot anatomy. A team of scholars from England, Kenya, the United States and South Africa unearthed about 18 footprints from two layers of sedimentary rock in Ileret, Kenya. Thought to be about 1.5 million years old, they are the first evidence that hominins at that time had a foot anatomy like our own and probably walked up-arch with aligned toes, unlike the more ape-like //Australopithecus afarensis// footprints found in Laetoli, Tanzania, in 1978. “We are learning a tremendous amount about the growth pattern of //H. erectus// from the fossil record,” says David Braun, co-author of the study from University of Cape Town, South Africa. The scholars scanned and digitized the prints at Ileret, which were lodged between sediment of sand, silt and volcanic ash. From the size, spacing and depth of the impressions, they were able to determine that the //H. erectus// probably walked by shifting his weight between the heel and the ball of the foot and launched using his big toes. “It is likely that the individual was an adult because of the size of the footprints. The estimated height of the individuals that made these prints is about 1.7 metres tall,” says Braun. //H. erectus// is believed to have been the first species to venture out of Africa and this latest discovery could be a huge step towards proving that theory right.
 * __ One Giant Leap __**