Author name: Anatoly N. Zaitsev

Hominin footprints are rare in eastern Africa and known from the Laetoli (Tanzania), Ileret (Kenya), and Melka Kunture (Ethiopia) areas. The prints were made by Australopithecus afarensis, Homo erectus,
and Homo heidelbergensis. Their study is an important source of information regarding hominin body size, anatomy, positional behavior, and locomotion biomechanics. The most-known and best-studied examples are the 3.66-Ma Australopithecus afarensis footprint trackways at Laetoli, which represent the oldest known record of hominin bipedalism in Africa. The footprints occur in a volcanic tuff sequence, which was originally deposited as melilite nephelinite ash. Recent excavations show that this valuable paleoanthropological site is slowly disappearing as a result of surface diagenetic processes. Preservation of the footprints is essential and urgently needed.

Establishing a scientific narrative of human origins requires a better understanding of the geological processes that facilitated the fossil- ization and recovery of hominins and associated fauna that inform us about our human ancestors’ past environments. Paleoanthropologists rely on geologists, particularly volcanologists, geochemists, sedimentologists, and geochronologists, to help them tease out the depositional and preservation history of fossils. Here, we provide an overview of how geology has contributed to major paleoanthropological discoveries from select Plio–Pleistocene locali- ties in eastern Africa, Tanzania (Oldupai* (Olduvai) Gorge and Laetoli), Kenya (Allia Bay, Kanapoi, and Koobi Fora), and Ethiopia (Hadar, Woranso-Mille, and Dikika) over the past 75 years of research.