14 DAY TRIAL // A group of investigators from the British Museum, the Natural History Museum in London, and the Queen Mary University of London have recently identified the oldest footprints ever discovered outside of Africa. The finding was made on the shores of the North Sea, at Happisburg, in the UK.
This small village was first put on the international map in 2010, when a team of scientists discovered flint tools nearly 800,000 years old at this location. Subsequent studies have revealed a series of footprints in May 2013, preserved amid sediments currently being exposed by coastal erosion.
The study site lies beneath the sands on Happisburg's beaches, as erosion chips away at the sand and more and more of the underlying sediments, which are primarily made up of clays and soft sands, are uncovered. It is within these deposits that investigators discovered the ancient footprints, which may themselves be around 800,000 years old.
Conducting relevant studies at this location is relatively difficult, due to the high rate of coastal erosion. The overlying sands are quickly pushed aside, exposing the ancient sediments for only short periods of time, before they are disintegrated by the merciless waves.
UK scientists say that the current location of the village was the site of an ancient estuary that featured high amounts of mud. The early humans that left the Happisburg footprints behind may have been walking over this mud so long ago, when they left their marks for posterity.
Researchers with the UK team say that there is no natural process that could account for erosion in the shape of human footprints. Initially, there were some doubts that the structures the group uncovered were indeed left behind by early humans, but further analysis established that that was indeed the case.
The investigators were able to identify heels, arches and, in one case, toes in the ancient footprints. The team estimates that the marks were left behind by 5 separate individuals, perhaps a family, whose tallest individual stood 5 foot 9 inches (1.75 meters) tall.
Anthropologists believe that these individuals belong to a species called Homo antecessor, which is believed that have occupied southern Europe at that time. The so-called Pioneer Man was fully bipedal and stood upright, just like we do today.