Archaeologists have discovered the oldest ever human footprints, dating back a whopping 115,000 years, and worryingly, they shouldn’t even be there.
Scientists uncovered the footprints in northern Saudi Arabia at a location fittingly nicknamed ‘the trace’ in Arabic.
Seven footprints were found by archaeologists who uncovered the site of a muddy lakebed, and they were found amidst the prints of hundreds of prehistoric animals.
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The site was found deep within the Nefud Desert in 2017 following over 100,000 years of weather finally wiping the sediment on top away.
While they said they cannot ‘completely exclude’ Neanderthals as the potential authors of the footprints, the authors of the paper written on the findings said it is ‘unlikely’.
Matthew Stewart, the lead author and a biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, said in a statement: “It is only after the last interglacial with the return of cooler conditions that we have definitive evidence for Neanderthals moving into the region.
“The footprints, therefore, most likely represent humans, or Homo sapiens.”
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As civilisations migrate from place to place they leave footprints behind, and often these become covered over.
Modern human footprints lose their fine details in mud flats within two days, and their prints are made completely unrecognisable within four.
This was found by an experimental study, and ‘similar observations’ have been made in the tracks of other non-hominin mammal tracks.
The footprints were found surrounding what would’ve been a lake, with their prints surrounded by those of non-predator animals.
In essence, the early stage humans were looking for somewhere to drink, and stopped around a lake.
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The scientists ended up concluding though that they didn’t stay for long.
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They said: “The lack of archaeological evidence suggests that the Alathar lake was only briefly visited by people.
“These findings indicate that transient lakeshore use by humans during a dry period of the last interglacial was likely primarily tied to the need for potable water.”
According to this, the tracks were probably the last ones laid down by humans in the area prior to an impending ice age.
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This may have played a part in the tracks not being walked over by other groups before another layer of sediment fell on it.
This finding by scientists is the latest in a long line of pre-historic footprints of homosapiens.
One particularly notable one was called Eve’s footprint, due to the fact it was deemed to be a female human foot – the print of which was left around 117,000 years ago.
Due to the range of when it may have taken place however, the footprints in Saudi Arabia may be even older than this, and could be as old as 130,000 years old.
Topics: Saudi Arabia
Michael Slavin