Oldest footprints of pre-humans identified in Crete

[Still Waters]

The oldest known footprints of pre-humans were found on the Mediterranean island of Crete and are at least six million years old, says an international team of researchers from Germany, Sweden, Greece, Egypt and England, led by Tübingen scientists Uwe Kirscher and Madelaine Böhme of the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen. Their study has been published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The footprints from fossilized beach sediments were found near the west Cretan village of Trachilos and published in 2017. Using geophysical and micropaleontological methods, researchers have now dated them to 6.05 million years before the present day, making them the oldest direct evidence of a human-like foot used for walking. "The tracks are almost 2.5 million years older than the tracks attributed to Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy) from Laetoli in Tanzania," Uwe Kirscher says. This puts the Trachilos footprints at the same age as the fossils of the upright-walking Orrorin tugenensis from Kenya. Finds connected with this biped include femurs, but there are no foot bones or footprints.

https://phys.org/news/2021-10-oldest-footprints-pre-humans-crete.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-98618-0

[+OverSword]

What do they mean by pre-humans?  Chimpanzees? 

[Still Waters]

3 minutes ago, OverSword said:

What do they mean by pre-humans?  Chimpanzees? 

Seeing as you asked.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/prehuman

[Ell]

Bear tracks?