Oldest footprints

The oldest human footprints have been found in volcanic ash in Italy. They were made by individuals scrambling down the flanks of an active volcano about 350,000 years ago.

Italian scientists, who identified three separate fossilised trackways, say the people that made them walked on two feet using their hands only to steady themselves on a difficult descent.

"They're the oldest footprints to be found of the genus Homo, the group that we belong to," the researchers told the BBC. Commentators say the prints were probably made by Homo heidelbergensis, a forerunner of Neanderthals, that dominated Europe at this time.

Paolo Mietto and colleagues from the University of Padua studied the trackways, known to locals as "devil's trails", and say they are particularly detailed.

The prints were found in the western margin of the Roccamonfina volcanic complex in southern Italy, in a pyroclastic flow dated between 385,000 and 325,000 years ago.

Posted by David on March 12, 2003 4:00 PM