Ancient human footprints discovery could rewrite the history of human migration | indy100

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Scientists say they may have found the oldest-ever human footprints, estimated to be 115,000 years old which could change our historical understanding of human migration.

The seven fossils located on Arabian Peninsula were discovered in a prehistoric mudhole surrounded by hundreds of prehistoric animal prints.

Back in 2017, archaeologists unearthed the site which was a special lakebed in Nefud Desert, northern Saudi Arabia that is nicknamed “the trace” in Arabic.

Around 100,000 years ago, countless people would've been walking across the muddy lakebed, leaving behind footprints which would eventually be covered over.

But with time and weather, these factors would lead to the overlying sediment being wiped away.

Material-wise, mud is nature's answer for keeping things preserved - but what makes it so great?

“An experimental study of modern human footprints in mud flats found that fine details were lost within 2 days and prints were rendered unrecognizable within four, and similar observations have been made for other non-hominin mammal tracks," researchers said in their paper.

As a result the small number of preserved footprints were made in unique conditions that also form a kind of “fingerprint” which is key for researchers in terms of understanding the timeframe.

Now we know this, who exactly made the footprints?

Upon their research, despite their being other species of human around back then, they believe Homo sapiens are the ones responsible for making the set of footprints they found.

“Seven hominin footprints were confidently identified, and given the fossil and archeological evidence for the spread of H. sapiens into the Levant and Arabia during [the era 130,000 to 80,000 years ago] and absence of Homo neanderthalensis from the Levant at that time, we argue that H. sapiens was responsible for the tracks at Alathar. In addition, the size of the Alathar footprints is more consistent with those of early H. sapiens than H. neanderthalensis.”

As for any other context we can gather as to why would be making their way through the muddy lakebed, it is thought that back then it was part of a prehistoric highway and as large animals made their travels there would be freshwater rest areas available to them as they migrated either due the weather or a change in the climate.

When it came to other clues pointing to prehistoric human travel there weren't a lot in regards to evidence of man made tools like knifes or tool marks on animal bones that could pinpoint to hunting.

So scientist reckon is wasn't an area Homo sapiens stuck around in.

“The lack of archaeological evidence suggests that the Alathar lake was only briefly visited by people,” the scientists noted. “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.”

They also theorised that the reason the footprints weren't tracked over by another group could be down to these Homo sapiens possibly being the last ones to walk through the muddy lakebed before the ice age, resulting in a new layer of sediment to cover the footprint and preserved it.

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