Italian and Eritrean researchers on Wednesday found the first footprints of 'homo erectus', a key predecessor of modern man. The footprints, left 800,000 years ago in the sand of a lake that is now part of an Eritrean desert, were found by palaeontologists from Rome's La Sapienza University and the National Museum of Eritrea, at the Aalad-Amo site in the east of the country. Dig coordinator Alfredo Coppa said the footprints would likely say a lot about a key species in the history of human evolution.

The footprints are very similar to those of modern man and could provide important information about our ancestors' foot anatomy and locomotion: they show details of the toes and the sole of the foot that made them efficient at walking and running. The footprints are aligned in a north-south direction the same as hoof prints left by extinct antelopes and are preserved in a sediment of hardened sand, probably exposed to flooding.

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Source: http://www.ansa.it/