The footprints are the first clear evidence that the two hominin species shared a habitat, raising questions about whether their interactions shaped human evolution.

An international team of researchers said Thursday that they had found two sets of hominin footprints that were made about the same time on an ancient lake’s shore in present-day Kenya. It is, they said, a “fossil first” that offers proof different hominin species lived at the same time and space.

The "huge" discovery near the shore of Lake Turkana in Kenya proves the theory that some ancient ancestors were neighbors

Muddy footprints found beside Lake Turkana, Kenya reveal two ancient hominin species were once neighbors 1.5 million years ago.

The researchers believe the footprints were made within hours of each other on the shores of an ancient lake in present-day Kenya.

There’s plenty of evidence that ancient hominin species crossed paths on many occasions – but it’s never been quite as literal as a new discovery in Kenya. Paleontologists have discovered the first known example of fossil footprints left by two different species of ancient hominins on the same day.

Roughly 1.5 million years ago, members of two different species of early humans walked barefoot across a muddy lakeshore in what is now Kenya. Their footprints, made within hours or days of each other,

That’s exactly what happened in Kenya, where fossilized footprints tell the story of two early human species sharing the same landscape 1.5 million years ago, according to tagesschau. These prints were found near Lake Turkana in the Koobi Fora Formation,

Analysis of Other Fossil Footprint Sites Shows That the Two Species Repeatedly Visited Lake Margin Habitats for Up to 200,000 Years