Fossilized human footprints of 1.5 million years old were found by Rutgers University's Koobi Fora Field School of Kenya.(Xinhua/AFP Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    BEIJING, March 2 (Xinhuanet) -- Fossilized human footprints of 1.5 million years old were found by Rutgers University's Koobi Fora Field School of Kenya, according to media reports Monday quotting a discovery in the journal Science.

    According to the researchers, the ancient footprints show that some of the earliest humans walked just like we do today and also had anatomically modern feet.

    The area around the human footprints is also littered with a range of animal prints, all discovered within two 1.5 million-year-old sedimentary layers near Ileret in northern Kenya.

    Three footprint trails were found in the upper sediment layer. Two of them had two prints each, while the other had seven prints and numerous isolated prints. Perfectly preserved some 4.5 meters below were one trail of two prints and a single isolated smaller print, possibly that of a child.

    The researchers say the size of the footprints and their modern anatomical characteristics point to the hominid Homo ergaster, the name by which early Homo erectus is more generally known. This was the first hominid to have had the same body proportions (longer legs and shorter arms) as modern Homo sapiens. Other H. ergaster or H. erectus remains have been found in Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya and South Africa, at dates consistent with the Ileret footprints.