The emergence of bipedalism had profound effects on human evolutionary history, but the evolution of locomotor patterns within the hominin clade remains poorly understood. Fossil tracks record in vivo behaviours of extinct hominins, and they offer great potential to reveal locomotor patterns at various times and places across the human fossil record. However, there is no consensus on how to interpret anatomical or biomechanical patterns from tracks due to limited knowledge of the complex foot–substrate interactions through which they are produced. Here, we implement engineering-based methods to understand human track formation with the ultimate goal of unlocking invaluable information on hominin locomotion from fossil tracks. We first developed biplanar X-ray and three-dimensional animation techniques that permit visualization of subsurface foot motion as tracks are produced, and that allow for direct comparisons of foot kinematics to final track morphology. We then applied the discrete element method to accurately simulate the process of human track formation, allowing for direct study of human track ontogeny. This window lets us observe how specific anatomical and/or kinematic variables shape human track morphology, and it offers a new avenue for robust hypothesis testing in order to infer patterns of foot anatomy and motion from fossil hominin tracks.

双足行走的出现对人类进化史产生了深远的影响，但人类进化枝内运动模式的进化仍然知之甚少。Fossil在体内追踪记录已灭绝的古人类的行为，它们为揭示人类化石记录中不同时间和地点的运动模式提供了巨大的潜力。然而，由于对产生它们的复杂足底相互作用的了解有限，如何从轨迹解释解剖或生物力学模式尚未达成共识。在这里，我们实施了基于工程的方法来理解人类轨迹的形成，最终目标是从化石轨迹中解锁关于人类运动的宝贵信息。我们首先开发了双平面 X 射线和 3D 动画技术，允许在产生轨迹时可视化地下足部运动，并允许将足部运动学与最终轨迹形态进行直接比较。然后，我们应用离散元方法来准确模拟人类轨迹形成的过程，从而可以直接研究人类轨迹个体发育。这个窗口让我们观察特定的解剖学和/或运动学变量如何塑造人类足迹形态，它为稳健的假设检验提供了一条新途径，以便从人类化石足迹推断足部解剖学和运动模式。