Kenya: Oldest Human Footprints With Modern Anatomy Found   National Geographic - February 26, 2009
Earliest 'human footprints' found   BBC - February 26, 2009

The earliest footprints showing evidence of modern human foot anatomy and gait have been unearthed in Kenya. The 1.5-million-year-old footprints display signs of a pronounced arch and short, aligned toes, in contrast to older footprints. The size and spacing of the Kenyan markings - attributed to Homo erectus - reflect the height, weight, and walking style of modern humans. The findings have been published in the journal Science.

Nevada: Oldest 'Footprints' on Earth Found Live Science - October 5, 2008

The oldest-known tracks of a creature apparently using legs have been discovered in rock dated to 570 million years ago in what was once a shallow sea in Nevada. Scientists think land beasts evolved from ancient creatures that left the sea and evolved lungs and legs. If the new finding is real - the discoverer anticipates skepticism - it pushes the advent of walking back 30 million years earlier than any previous solid finding.

The aquatic creature left its "footprints" as two parallel rows of small dots, each about 2 millimeters in diameter. Scientists said today that the animal must have stepped lightly onto the soft marine sediment, because its legs only pressed shallow pinpoints into that long-ago sea bed.

The tracks were made during what is called the Ediacaran period, which preceded the Cambrian period, the time when most major groups of animals first evolved. Scientists had once thought only microbes and simple multicellular animals existed prior to the Cambrian, but that notion is changing, said Ohio State University Professor Loren Babcock. "We keep talking about the possibility of more complex animals in the Ediacaran soft corals, some arthropods, and flatworms, but the evidence has not been totally convincing," Babcock said. "But if you find evidence, like we did, of an animal with legs, an animal walking around then that makes the possibility much more likely. We came on an outcrop that looked like it crossed the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary, so we stopped to take a look at it. We just sat down and started flipping rocks over. We were there less than an hour when I saw it."

Little can be gleaned about what sort of creature it was, but Babcock is "reasonably certain - not 100 percent" that it was an arthropod, such as one resembling a centipede or millipede, or by a leg-bearing worm. It might have been about as wide as a pencil and may have had multiple, spindly legs.

In 2002, other researchers reported a similar fossil trail from Canada that dated back to the middle of the Cambrian period, about 520 million years ago. Another set of tracks found in South China date back to 540 million years ago. At approximately 570 million years old, this new fossil not only provides the earliest suggestion of animals walking on legs, but it also shows that complex animals were alive on Earth before the Cambrian.

Oldest Identifiable Footprints Found Live Science - September 12, 2007

Ancient human footprints found in Australia MSNBC - July 28, 2006

Researchers believe prints were made approximately 20,000 years ago when humans trekked along the margins of a shallow lake in Australia, leaving behind records of their passage in the soft, wet sand.

In 2003, an aboriginal woman who is likely a descendant of those early Australians stumbled across dozens of timeworn footprints in the same area. Excavations of the site have since uncovered hundreds more. The discovery, detailed in a recent issue of the Journal of Human Evolution, represents the largest collection of Pleistocene human footprints in the world, and the only footprints from that era ever found in Australia. In total, 457 footprints have now been uncovered.

"The preservation is just remarkable," said study team member Matthew Cupper of the University of Melbourne in Australia. "You can see quite clearly how mud oozes between the toes." The Pleistocene stretched from about 2 million to 12,000 years ago. Highlights from the era:

• A series of climatic upheavals, the worldwide spread of human-like primates, or hominids;
• The extinction of Neanderthals and large land mammals - including mammoths, giant sloth and saber toothed cats;
• The rise of modern humans.

Humans weren't the only ones that passed through the area. The prints from two kangaroo hind paws are visible, as are the tracks of a baby emu, a large flightless bird similar to an ostrich. Cupper says the emu prints might be an important clue about when the human footprints were made.

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Earliest human footprints in Australia News in Science - December 21, 2005
At tens of thousands of years old the find is the largest group of human footprints from the Pleistocene era ever found.

Footprints of 'first Americans' BBC - July 5, 2005

Oldest human footprints found - 350,000 years ago BBC - March 2003

The oldest human footprints have been found in volcanic ash in Italy.

Ancient bird-like footprints found June 2002 - New Scientist
Argentine paleontologists have found bird-like footprints 55 million years older than the oldest known bird fossils.

AP - June 11, 1999 - Paris

A young boy walking inside a cave 25,000 to 27,000 years ago left what French archaeologists believe may be the oldest human footprints in Europe.

French archaeologists discovered the four footprints while exploring the so-called Chauvet cave, which already boasts the world's oldest reliably dated wall paintings, in the southern Ardeche region.

Scientists studying the site said Thursday there was no way to precisely date the prints in the damp clay, but that carbon datings nearby in the cave strengthen their case.

"We have made an intellectual link - one that is very strong," said Jean-Pierre Daugas, an archaeologist and chief administrator for the cave. "Before the cave was discovered, it had been closed off for 20,000 years. Everything we have found near the footprints is older than that."

The cave, discovered five years ago by an amateur spelunker, contains 300 prehistoric wall paintings, considered the world's oldest. The radiocarbon datings of the paintings, as well as campfire remains, range from 23,000 to 32,000 years.

The footprints were discovered by a team of 15 scientists who joined those already studying the paintings in May. The markings, which measure 8.3 inches long, are thought to have been made by a boy 8 to 10 years old.

If the scientists are correct, the footprints are the oldest known in Europe, belonging to Cro-Magnon man - "people like you and me," Daugas said.

The Chauvet cave's walls are adorned with animals of the glacial era and the floors littered with campfires, flints and the bones of bears.

The valuable find also has been the subject of legal wrangling between the state and Jean-Claude Chauvet, who claims that as the cave's discoverer, he has rights to some of the future financial proceeds.

Revenue from the caves will come from photographs, postcards, posters and other memorabilia sold to visitors.

Scientists agree the cave could outclass the famous Lascaux caves, about 18,000 years old, which draw hundreds of thousands of tourists each year.

"The cave is extremely rich and will likely give us many more clues to exactly how these people lived," said Jean Clottes, the archaeologist who heads the team that discovered the footprints.

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