Our ancestors were walking 3.6m years ago

EARLY humans may have learned to walk much earlier than previously thought, say researchers.

Analysis of a set of ancient footprints suggest that our ancestors spent some of the time walking upright 3.6million years ago – when we still looked like apes and grew to just 4ft. It means homo erectus, the first ancient human thought to have abandoned climbing trees to walk full-time around two million years ago, cannot take all the glory for abilities on two legs.

Scientists from the universities of Arizona and Albany in the US analysed a set of footprints reported just two years ago in Laetoli, an archaeological site in Tanzania. The ancient ape-like humans who made them were called Australopithecus afarensis, whose males grew to an average 4ft 11ins and females to 3ft 5ins.

If these people shuffled awkwardly like apes, with bent knees and hips, the footprints should have had deeper toe than heel prints based on the foot’s pressure. But the toe depth measurements suggest our ancient ancestors walked fully upright with straight legs, said the research published in the Journal of Human Evolution and presented at the Experimental Biology annual conference in San Diego.