Several trails of bipedal footprints, possibly those of Australopithecus afarensis (see Australopithecus ), preserved in volcanic ash at Laetoli in northern Tanzania and dated to 3.
6 million years ago. They were discovered in 1976 by a team led by the Leakey family . The footprints indicate that the mechanism of weight and force transference through the early hominid foot was virtually identical to that of modern humans and suggest that two of the individuals, one larger and one smaller, walked together in stride and were close enough to have been touching. See also Lucy .