Hominid Ichnology: Tracking Our Own Origins

摘要

Ichnology is the over-all study of traces made by organisms,including their description, classification, and interpretation.(Pemberton et al., 1992). Hominids are our ancestors who aremore closely related to us than to any other living species, andthey include australopithecines and members of the genus Homowith all species extinct except one: Homo sapiens (Champbelland Reece, 2002). Hence, Hominid Ichnology, a term introducedby Lockley (1998), is literally the ichnology of hominids—thestudy of traces made by hominids, our ancestors