Archaeologists have reported that they have found footprints of a human ancestor, left 1.5 million years ago in Kenya; the footprints show that the ancient humans walked in the similar way as the modern human beings walk with modern feet.

A team of international archaeologists wrote in the journal Science that the footprints have been discovered in sedimentary rock near Ileret in northern Kenya. The footprints most likely left by a human ancestor called Homo erectus, also known as Homo ergaster, resemble the footprints left in wet sand by beach goers today.

The archaeologists have claimed that they have discovered a series of footprints, including one clearly left by a child, left by individuals walking on a muddy river bank. Studying the stride lengths, the archaeologists have estimated that the ancient humans who left the footprints were about 5-foot-9 (1.75 meters) in height.

In a telephonic interview, David Braun, archaeologist from the University of Cape Town in South Africa and the member of the team that discovered footprints, said, "It was kind of creepy excavating these things to see all of a sudden something that looks so dramatically like something that you yourself could have made 20 minutes earlier in some kind of wet sediment just next to the site.”

Braun added, "These could quite easily have been made on the beach today."

According to the archaeologists, the footprints indicate that the ancient people had a big toe parallel to the other toes, and they had human-like arch and short toes, typically associated with an upright bipedal stance. The footprints’ size, spacing and depth show that the weight, stride and gait of the human ancestors were similar to the modern humans.

The archaeologists have claimed that it is one of the most important discoveries of the modern times; our species, Homo sapiens, first appeared 200,000 years ago, but the footprints they have found were left 1.5 million years ago.

The archaeologists have stated that the footprints are the second-oldest known footprints of human ancestors. The oldest footprints, which were found in Tanzania, were most likely left about 3.75 million years ago, and they were most likely left a much more primitive human ancestor called Australopithecus.