800,000 Year Old Footprints Found in the UK , Oldest Outside Africa.

The footprints in Happisburgh Norfolk are the oldest discovered outside Africa and are believed to belong to a separate species of Humans called Homo antecessor who were known to have lived in southern Europe, it is believed they went on to to evolve into Neanderthals.

The footprints on Happisburgh beach are possibly those of a family in search of food

The footprints are one of the most important discoveries, if not the most important discovery, that has been made on these shores”
Dr Nick Aston British Museum

"They appear to have been made by one adult male who was about 5ft 9in (175cm) tall and the shortest was about 3ft. The other larger footprints could come from young adult males or have been left by females. The glimpse of the past that we are seeing is that we have a family group moving together across the landscape."

"This discovery gives us even more concrete evidence that there were people there," he told BBC News. "We can now start to look at a group of people and their everyday activities. And if we keep looking, we will find even more evidence of them, hopefully even human fossils. That would be my dream".
www.bbc.co.uk...

The sea has now reclaimed the footprints but at least we have a record of their existence , scientists are hopeful that there are more examples still waiting to be found which I guess could be a positive side to the stormy weather we have been experiencing.

you weren't first sorry!

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by ladyteeny


Yeah I saw the other one after I posted .... but I got the video

reply to post by gortex


It was the first one I saw - good find, Gortex, that's thrilling!

reply to post by gortex


Great picture.

I often think about the loss of Doggerland and the ancient people who lived there and all around our coastlines.

It does get me though that whenever one reads an article on ancient people archaeologists always put in some, what I think of as innane comment e.g. they were looking for food etc. I am always tempted to say, how about out for a walk or to visit mates etc or even to go to a gathering of some sort. Its always portrayed as though life was so basic - hunt, breed, eat, shelter and somehow I just feel that they had more going for them culturally than given credit. The truth is we don't know what they were doing and innane guesses by archaeologists just annoy me.

reply to post by gortex


Very interesting find.

They seem to predate H heidelbergensis by at least 300,000 years or so. Now, if they can find a skull or better yet, a grave site. That would be awesome.

Thats very cool. I was once up in the mountains of Arkansas, and discovered two footprints in a rock, one large and the other small. I was around 16, so the importance didnt really sink in until years later, I ve since gone back but am unable to find the same rock. Ive decided to try later in the year when the weather is better.

They sure made a lot of speculations about some people who were walking across some slimey mud. I bet the thousands of people around those days thought the guy was a little simple for taking a chance walking across that muck. He would have had to wash his feet before he was allowed back in the cave or his old lady would have been hitting him with the broom.

See, I can speculate as well as they did, actually maybe even a little better.

Footprints in Norfolk? It was probably just some guy going home from the pub.

Ok.......a rock with lots of eroded little rock pools in it?

And they are suppose to be footprints?

I really think some of these people are seeing things which may not be there....a bit like the Mars rock people.
Im sure they are all learned fellows that have gone to university and are never wrong, but a smoothed rock surface, with little rock pools in it, are footprints?.

I can show you places and rock surfaces near the coast that look the same...but learned fellows here have said they were made by glacial movement over rocky surface, hence the smooth polished look, and the little rock pools caused by erosion.....Not to mention they are by the sea, where everything is polished smooth eventually and eroded.

The illustration of the "Footprints" show a random bunch of depressions, going in all which way, with not any pattern of a Human Walking, and one, only one that looks like it has 4 toes.
Highly skeptical analysis at its best.

But of course, these boffins are very learned and get pay lots of money to do this research, they know best.

I can show you a beach in Tasmania that has a very "Humanlike" rock formation, and has the appearance of tiles piled alongside each other to form a road or pathway to the ancients, by some ancient civilization of advance humans from the stars. But they are'nt, they are a natural formation called Tessellated rocks.
en.wikipedia.org...

www.atlasobscura.com...

Yes I do question these scientists hypothesis, in this instance. (only as a lay person, not a boffin expert like them)

gort51
Yes I do question these scientists hypothesis, in this instance. (only as a lay person, not a boffin expert like them)

Exactly - you haven't a clue and haven't even given them the decency of reading their study

Read this. It contains all the details of the research they've done. Seems they know what they are talking about and done their homework, where as you literally have no leg to stand on, being a "lay person".#

EDIT: Had you even done them the courtesy of reading their work, you'd know why these haven't been washed away and also that this area was not coastline at all 800,000 years ago owing to the Ice Ages, but rather an estuary.

rickymouse
See, I can speculate as well as they did, actually maybe even a little better.

Your speculation is based on nothing - their speculation is based on some pretty good research with numbers and pretty graphs, so no, you cannot speculate anywhere near as well as them, despite what you think!

reply to post by stumason


Yes I did read it thankyou.

While they argue for their positive result, it is still all conjecture.

So the stone area was only exposed recently, due to erosion of beachside cliffs supposedly.

They are quite happy to talk about estuaries and mid glacial sedimentary deposits of mud, but dont even hint as to why or how they were buried under "cliffs" in the first place. So how did the rocks get covered by the dirt/sand whatever?.

Their other observation is quite weak too. They say they must be footprints because the underlaying sediments are not eroded, so therefore they are footprints not erosion.....
Unfortunately, this is also a lack of understanding of erosion. While the sea is currently lapping the surface of the rocks, this was not the case in days of old. Erosion comes in many forms and all could have influenced "Pock marks" in the surface and not the underlying layers...You have, glacial movement, wind, rain, tidal, ice, frost, any tiny fissure or crack in the rock could easily be opened over the years by ice expanding etc.

They have also drawn a lovely map of all the footprints....not any two make a pair of upright human stance!.
There is no walking pattern, there is no even standing pattern, their is no two pairs walking together, there is no evidence of any Left and Right pairs........other than depressions that, with a lot of imagination, may resemble a primate type (or bear) footprint.

Have a look yourself, if you can find a matching pair, walking or standing.....let us know.

When you live on a continent with 13000 miles of coastline, the biggest exposed rock in the World (Uluru), Real Human and dinosaur footprints in real ancient mud, Unususal rock formations up the ying yang....then it is not hard to question these "Experts", about little rockpools near the sea in Ol Blighty.

reply to post by gort51


From what you have said, it would appear you haven't actually read it, just skimmed it.

Forgive me if I take the opinion of actual experts over one who has declared himself an expert based on the fact you live in Australia.

As for the point of there being no "walking pattern", how are you sure? They have found amongst the depressions ones that show just heel or toe imprints, indicative of walking and also that the tracks lead in one direction - another sign you didn't read it properly.

Not there has to be signs of "walking" to prove they are footprints. It is entirely possible that a group of hominids were walking, then stopped to admire the view leaving deeper depressions, before moving on. I've left footprints on my front garden with just one foot, does that mean I am not walking?

EDIT: Basically, you're dismissing a serious scientific effort on the basis that you know better, despite the acknowledgement you are a lay person and know fudge all about it. It is interesting to note there is no dispute from any corner of the scientific world these are footprints

stumason

rickymouse
See, I can speculate as well as they did, actually maybe even a little better.

Your speculation is based on nothing - their speculation is based on some pretty good research with numbers and pretty graphs, so no, you cannot speculate anywhere near as well as them, despite what you think!

From the OP "The other larger footprints could come from young adult males or have been left by females." Yeah right, that is not speculation. For all we know it could be a bunch of pygmies back then living there.

rickymouse
From the OP "The other larger footprints could come from young adult males or have been left by females." Yeah right, that is not speculation.

That's pretty weak - of course they can't determine with any degree of certainty the sex of a footprint so being scientists, they won't make the assumption.

rickymouse
For all we know it could be a bunch of pygmies back then living there.

edit on 8-2-2014 by rickymouse because: (no reason given)

Chances are, they were. They weren't Homo Sapiens, that much is certain.

reply to post by gortex



The footprints could have created by an earlier ancestor of the Neanderthal species.

Neanerthal

Neanderthals are generally classified by palaeontologists as the species Homo neanderthalensis, but a minority consider them to be a subspecies of Homo sapiens, (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis).[8] The first humans with proto-Neanderthal traits are believed to have existed in Europe as early as 600,000–350,000 years ago.[9]

Lower and Middle Palaeolithic (Britain)

There is evidence from bones and flint tools found in coastal deposits near Happisburgh in Norfolk and Pakefield in Suffolk that a species of Homo was present in what is now Britain at least 814,000 years ago. At this time, Southern and Eastern Britain were linked to continental Europe by a wide land bridge allowing humans to move freely.

reply to post by Havick007

The footprints could have created by an earlier ancestor of the Neanderthal species.

Indeed they could , the scientists are working on the theory that the footprints were created by a species known as Homo antecessor who were active in southern Europe around that time .It's believed that Homo antecessor went on to become the Neanderthals.

reply to post by Havick007


The footprints are likely homo erectus or the ancestors of denisovan/neanderthal lineage.
It's a fascinating find, if they were foraging in an estuary it might lend creadance to a "wading homonin" lifestyle.
There is good skeletal evidence from some archaic populations, that a wading lifestyle affected certain skeletal traits, that persisted into prehistoric populations.
And this is not aquatic ape theory.

reply to post by rickymouse


The footprints may have been an ancient archaeologist who thought he'd found an imprint in some clay of some prehistoric ape-man?