90,000-year-old human footprints found on Moroccan beach

[pinball1970]

TL;DR Summary

An international team of archaeologists has found and identified a trackway made by multiple humans approximately 90,000 years ago in what is now Morocco. In their paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, the group describes how they tested for its origins of the tracks.

Full article here.

https://phys.org/news/2024-01-year-human-footprints-moroccan-beach.html

Paper here https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-52344-5

"From an ichnological point of view, the Larache footprints represent an important discovery. Indeed, no other site in North Africa has yielded footprints dating from the Pleistocene or Pliocene. They are, therefore, the oldest human footprints in this region and among the oldest footprints attributed to Homo sapiens worldwide."

From google : Ichnology is the study of the fossilized tracks, trails, burrows and excavations made by animals and more broadly the study of bioturbation, which is the reworking of sediment by animals. Ichnologists use ichnofossils or trace fossils to interpret paleoecological aspects of sedimentary environments.

A link on the dating technique used

OSL, Optically Stimulated Luminescence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optically_stimulated_luminescence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminescence_dating

 

[difalcojr]

Guess those were Mousterians walking. Maybe going up to mix with some Neanderthals at a music festival.
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https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Se... world&sts=t&cm_sp=SearchF-_-topnav-_-Results