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Archaeologists in South Africa have discovered the footprint ofHomo sapiensdating to 153,000 years ago , the oldest known track attribute to our metal money , a new study find .
The record - break finding is one of many excavate in Africa over the retiring few decades . Since the account of 3.66 million - year - old footprints at the web site of Laetoli in Tanzania over 40 days ago , paleoanthropologists have found more than 100 walk track preserved in rocks , ash tree and clay leave by our hominin ancestors , the group that includes advanced and extinct homo as well as our nearly - related ancestors .
A 153,000-year-old footprint that is outlined in chalk. It seems unusually long and narrow because it includes a heel drag.
Seven archaeological sites with tracks leave behind by humans — called “ ichnosites ” — were discovered just east of the southern tip of the African continent , tens of miles inland from the ancient coast . In an article published April 25 in the journalIchnos , an international squad of research worker used optically - stimulated luminescence ( OSL ) to figure out when the impressions were made .
These South African ichnosites included four with hominin caterpillar tread , one with knee impression , and four with “ ammoglyphs ” — a term denote any practice , not just footprint , made by humans that has been preserved over time .
Footprint evidence can add a gravid deal to the archeological record , accord to the researchers , as it " can provide not just an reading of humanity travelling across these surfaces as individuals or groups , but also evidence of some of the activeness that they engaged in , " the authors pen in the cogitation . In South Africa , early evidence for modern human behaviour includes personal adornment such as jewellery , development of intricate stone tools , the use of abstract symbol , harvesting of shellfish , and coastal cave and rock - shelter sites .
A 3D photogrammetry track image from a site near the oldest prints' location. This track is younger, in the 76,000 to 90,000 year age range, but the footprint is very clear. (Horizontal and vertical scales are in meters.)
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The researchers used OSL to date the South African caterpillar tread site . This dating method work by estimating the time that has passed since grains of quartz or felspar in or near the fossilized trackways were last give away to sunlight . When surface that human race walked on were cursorily buried , OSL can be used to figure out the date .
sampling from the Garden Route National Park ( GRNP ) lead land site , which contains seven identifiable tracks conserve in gamy drop , were date to 153,000 years ago , plus or minus 10,000 year . Although there are sr. preserved footprints from other hominin species throughout Africa , Asia and Europe , the GRNP track site is now the oldest one made byHomo sapiens , whichevolved in Africa around 300,000 yr ago .
Most of the sample the team test date to between 70,000 and 130,000 years ago , and they were " pleasantly astonish " to rule the 153,000 - year - quondam track internet site , examine first authorCharles Helm , a research associate at the African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa , told Live Science in an email .
The discovery has " acted as a prodding to continue our lookup for hominin caterpillar track in deposits we get laid are even old , " Helm say .
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The researchers note , however , that attribution of the tracks to a specific species is free-base more on archaeological artifacts and emaciated remains than on the anatomy of the tracks themselves . " Not all sites provide conclusive evidence , " they wrote in their report , so " arguing and argumentation are likely to continue . "
But the clock is tick off on study these sites . " We suspect that further hominin ichnosites are waiting to be discovered on the Cape south coast , " Helm and report Centennial State - authorAndrew Carr , a physical geographer at the University of Leicester in the U.K. , wrote inThe Conversation . " They are also vulnerable to corroding , so we often have to puzzle out tight to record and analyse them before they are destroyed by the sea and the idle words . "
