Doctoral Dissertation Improvement: Fossil footprints and the dynamics of footprint formation: Implications for the evolution of human gait

两足行走是现代人类的基本行为，但许多关于我们已灭绝的祖先的进化问题仍未得到解答。研究骨骼解剖化石的古人类学家用许多不同的方法分析了这些数据，但在两足动物何时以及如何进化的问题上得出了相互矛盾的结论。解决这一持续争论的新方法是必要的。在Brian Richmond博士的指导下，乔治华盛顿大学的博士生Kevin Hatala将通过分析一种新型的“行为化石”数据（以最近发现的人类脚印化石的形式出现）来寻求一种新的方法来规避这些问题。随着来自上新世-更新世不同时期的化石足迹样本的增加，这些数据可用于研究人类足部解剖结构和两足运动的进化。然而，在科学家们能够利用这些脚印中存储的信息之前，他们需要确定如何在脚印中记录解剖和步态。本研究将使用实验生物力学来研究足迹形成的动态过程，并将这些知识应用于坦桑尼亚Laetoli的古人类化石足迹分析；Ileret,肯尼亚;以及坦桑尼亚的Engare Sero。这些分析将直接验证一个假设，即现代人在解剖学和功能上对两足运动的适应，分别出现在370万年前、150万年前和12万年前的古人类身上。通过与罗格斯大学/肯尼亚国家博物馆Koobi Fora田野学校的合作，该项目包括对来自肯尼亚、南非和美国的本科生进行广泛的培训。研究结果将通过出版物和会议向科学观众展示，并通过与史密森尼国家自然历史博物馆人类起源项目的持续合作向公众展示。肯尼亚国家博物馆将开发一个新的档案系统，允许学生和其他研究人员访问在这个项目中产生的化石足迹的原始三维扫描。

Bipedalism is a fundamental modern human behavior yet many questions about its evolution in our extinct ancestors remain unanswered. Paleoanthropologists studying fossilized skeletal anatomy have analyzed these data in many different ways, only to arrive at conflicting conclusions regarding when and how bipedalism evolved. New approaches are necessary to resolve this ongoing debate.Doctoral student Kevin Hatala (The George Washington University), under the supervision of Dr. Brian Richmond, will pursue a novel approach that circumvents these problems by analyzing a new type of 'fossilized behavior' data, in the form of recently discovered fossil hominin footprints. With a growing sample of fossil footprints from different times throughout the Plio-Pleistocene, these data can be used to investigate the evolution of human foot anatomy and bipedal locomotion. Before scientists can take advantage of the information stored in these footprints, however, there is need to determine how anatomy and gait are recorded in footprints. This study will use experimental biomechanics to investigate the dynamic process of footprint formation, and will apply this knowledge to the analysis of fossil hominin footprints from Laetoli, Tanzania; Ileret, Kenya; and Engare Sero, Tanzania. These analyses will directly test the hypothesis that modern humans' anatomical and functional adaptations for bipedal locomotion were present in hominins at 3.7, 1.5, and 0.12 million years ago, respectively.Through collaboration with the Rutgers University/National Museums of Kenya Koobi Fora Field School, this project involves extensive training of undergraduates from Kenya, South Africa, and the US. Results will be presented to scientific audiences through publications and conferences, and to the public through ongoing collaborations with the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History Human Origins Program. A new archival system will be developed at the National Museums of Kenya, allowing students and other researchers to access the original three-dimensional scans of fossil footprints generated during this project.