Reflections on the footprints of the hominids found at Laetoli.

The prints of Laetoli are of considerable interest with respect to the evolutionary development of the foot and of the human mode of progression. The placing of the prints, with one foot behind the other and the absence of an angle of gait may be due to the condition of parallelism of the guides of the astralagus, an archaic characteristic, which, however, also occurs in the Olduvai foot and in other very old human astragali, but which also occurs sporadically in present-day feet. It is also of great relevance that the feet, which left these prints, show a hallux, which is longer than the second digit. This character has either been considered a relatively recent evolutionary development, but the prints at Laetoli demonstrate the contrary.