800,000yrs old footprints found in UK

[Eldorado]

"Scientists have discovered the earliest evidence of human footprints outside of Africa, on the Norfolk Coast in the East of England.

The footprints are more than 800,000 years old and were found on the shores of Happisburgh.

They are direct evidence of the earliest known humans in northern Europe."

Full article & video: http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-26025763

Just thought I'd share.

Link for British Museum project page: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/research_projects/all_current_projects/featured_project_happisburgh.aspx

Edited February 7, 2014 by Eldorado

[Dumpnuts]

I feel like there's a joke about the footprints-of-Jesus-on-the-beach picture somewhere in here... I just can't find it.

Edit: The joke. Not the footprints-of-Jesus-on-the-beach picture.

Edit: Edit: Sex on the Beach!!! (I'm grasping at straws here )

Edited February 7, 2014 by DumpsterJesus

[Frank Merton]

Smart people; they chose a nice place to live.

[Leonardo]

Meh, this isn't a very amazing discovery at all.

It's well known here in the South, that there are many examples of such ancient, primitive humans "oop North". And their footprints (along with other evidences) are everywhere!

[Dark_Grey]

This doesn't follow Ken Ham's 'observational science'. They say the footprints are 800,000 years old, but were you actually there to see it?

[Frank Merton]

I would make a wild guess that the shape of the prints put it as the much earlier species.

[avs76]

800,000 years - that's amazing! I had no idea humankind was was out of Africa and in Britain that long ago.

[Stardrive]

I would make a wild guess that the shape of the prints put it as the much earlier species.

Homo antecessor.

[Dumpnuts]

Homo antecessor.

Hey, hey now! No name calling!

[Mac E]

Very cool. And it was backed by evidence for the aging. This was well put together.

[Mantis914]

If there are footprints, perhaps there's other stuff around there to suggest a civilization was around at that time? That looked like an awful lot of footprints...

[Eldorado]

If there are footprints, perhaps there's other stuff around there to suggest a civilization was around at that time? That looked like an awful lot of footprints...

http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/research_projects/all_current_projects/featured_project_happisburgh.aspx

[blackjack62]

looks like a beach party....any empty 6 packs...

[Ealdwita]

800,000 years - that's amazing! I had no idea humankind was was out of Africa and in Britain that long ago.

Actually, there aren't too many humans in Norfolk even now.....

"Ar ya reet boi?"

My mother's ancestors are 'Yellerbellies' BTW...(In case you thought I was being racist!)

[+DieChecker]

Just read that the prints only lasted about 3 weeks before being washed away by the ocean. You'd think that they could have build a rockpile or something to protect them for much longer.

[coolguy]

Do they really know they are this old.ld be bull

[+susieice]

How can they be there for 800,000 years and then get washed away in 3 weeks?

Just asking.

Edited February 8, 2014 by susieice

[Leonardo]

How can they be there for 800,000 years and then get washed away in 3 weeks?

Just asking.

They weren't actually washed away, the article was being rather inaccurate in using that particular phrase. They were reburied under sand and sediment by the tide.

Edited February 8, 2014 by Leonardo

[Frank Merton]

The sad thing is that what could be immensely valuable (scientifically) fossils and artifacts are uncovered by erosion and ultimately lost all the time even though people look right at them and don't realize what they are.

[garyse7]

I have a footprint on a rock that I found in our garden, our grandsons foor fits perfectly into the impression, you can even count the toes.

[EllJay]

I bet the man who made that footprint didn't expect that it would echo through history.

I also find it amazing that they have found footprints from dinosaurs in hardened mud. It would be kinda mindblowing standing by that footprint and imagine that a dinosaur ran just here over some 200 million years ago.

[+DieChecker]

How can they be there for 800,000 years and then get washed away in 3 weeks?

Just asking.

They weren't actually washed away, the article was being rather inaccurate in using that particular phrase. They were reburied under sand and sediment by the tide.

Here is the article I read...

http://www.latimes.c...y#axzz2shj9WjCg

The researchers knew the prints would not last long. They had been preserved for hundreds of millennia only because they had been buried deep beneath the cliffs that line the beach. But the cliffs are eroding rapidly, and as they wash into the sea, they are uncovering earlier sediments at their base. The footprints were in one of these sediments, but now that they were exposed to the ocean waves, they would swiftly erode.

Over the next two weeks the team used photogrammetry and laser scanning techniques to produce a 3D record of 152 of the mysterious hollows. From these methods they were able to see that the impressions were elongated like a foot. They were even able to spot what looked like toe marks.

In the paper, the researchers say the footprints could not have been made by recent activity, because the sediment is now too compact and not squishy enough to make a footprint.

Just three weeks after they were discovered, the ancient footprints were gone, washed away by the sea.

But the record of the prints remains, and, there is always hope that as the cliffs continue to deteriorate, new footprints from the distant past will emerge.

It sounds to me like these footprints were in hard clay, not stone. So the waves eroded them away.

Edited February 8, 2014 by DieChecker

[Leonardo]

Here is the article I read...

http://www.latimes.c...y#axzz2shj9WjCg

It sounds to me like these footprints were in hard clay, not stone. So the waves eroded them away.

If you watch the video in the OP, you'll see the footprints were below the tide mark - not recently exposed from a cliff-face. The scientist who discovered them then went back to that spot after the footprints were recovered by sand.

[Stardrive]

That was my take on it also Leo. But it seems there might be a discrepancy because the news headline title, in DC's link, is : "800,000-year-old footprints found in England -- then they washed away". Where is that missing piece to the puzzle when you need it?......

[Eldorado]

Guys....

"In May 2013 a team of scientists led by the British Museum, Natural History Museum and Queen Mary University of London discovered a series of footprints left by early humans in ancient estuary muds over 800,000 years ago at Happisburgh in Norfolk.

The discovery was made on the foreshore at low tide where heavy seas had removed the beach sand to reveal the normally flat estuarine muds. But in one area a series of elongated hollows were cut into the compacted silts. It was only after recording the surface through photogrammetry, a technique that stitches together digital photographs to create a 3D record, that confirmed these were indeed ancient human footprints.

Within two weeks the prints had eroded away, but analyses of the digital images show in some cases the heel, arch and even toes of a range of adults and children." (emphasis mine)

http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/research_projects/all_current_projects/featured_project_happisburgh/happisburgh_footprints.aspx