Neanderthal men were followed around by randy women and enjoyed four-way sex sessions

FOOTPRINTS discovered from 3.7 million years ago reveal that our predecessors had some raunchy sex sessions.

Some foot prints have revealed some interesting info about Neanderthals’ sex lives.

ANCIENT men had multiple sexual partners who followed in tow as they roamed the birthplace of humanity, scientists have claimed.

Newly discovered footprints dating back to 3.7 million years ago show a 165cm stud walking with what experts say could be his harem of female admirers.

The 13 prints left in volcanic ash in eastern Africa suggest he was the tallest person yet discovered from a primitive prehuman species.

Named S1, he towered over his clan of up to three wives and their several children who left marks in the ground nearby, archaeologists found.

The tracks are the oldest evidence of the existence of a species named Australopithecus afarensis, a forerunner to Neanderthal humans.

The fossilised footprints of a human ancestor, believed to be Australopithecus afarensis, at the Laetoli site in northern Tanzania. Picture: Raffaello Pellizzon

Neanderthal Wilma, was created using 43,000-year-old bones.

In November, scientists made the groundbreaking discovery of ‘Lucy’, the near-complete skeleton a 91cm female member of the mysterious species in Ethiopia.

This latest find by a team of Italian scientists sheds new light on the sex lives of our ancient ancestors.

A 2003 study by researchers from Penn State University suggested Australopithecus afarensis only had one sexual partner.

Using sexual activity data from modern humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas, they concluded that “the reproductive strategy of A afarensis was principally monogamy.”

Professor Giorgio Manzi, lead author of the latest study, said: “This novel evidence, taken as a whole with the previous findings, portrays several early hominins moving as a group through the landscape following a volcanic eruption and subsequent rainfall. But there is more.

“The footprints of one of the new individuals are astonishingly larger than anyone else’s in the group, suggesting that he was a large male member of the species.”

They were found at Laetoli, a site made famous in the 1970s for providing the earliest evidence of prehumans walking upright on two feet.

Artists impression of early hominid human evolution from left to right, Ramapithecus, Australopithecus, Homo erectus, Neanderthal man, Cro Magnon man and modern man Homo sapiens.

Measurements of the prints allowed scientists to conclude that S1 weighed just more than 41kg and loomed at least 20cm over his wives.

Marco Cherin, who also worked on the study, said: “A tentative conclusion is that the group consisted of one male, two or three females, and one or two juveniles, which leads us to believe that the male — and therefore other males in the species — had more than one female mate.”

But some have cast doubt on S1’s height.

Philip Reno, who worked on the 2003 Penn State study, said the 165cm figure is “in the right ballpark” but it was unlikely S1 was taller than examples found in Ethiopia.

This article originally appeared in The Sun and was reproduced here with permission.