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Britain's Eastern Coast Yields Oldest Human Footprints Outside Africa

Posted by timothy on from the before-the-invention-of-wellingtons dept.

schwit1 writes "They were a British family on a day out — almost a million years ago. Archaeologists announced Friday that they have discovered human footprints in England that are between 800,000 and 1 million years old — the most ancient found outside Africa, and the earliest evidence of human life in northern Europe. A team from the British Museum, London's Natural History Museum and Queen Mary college at the University of London uncovered imprints from up to five individuals in ancient estuary mud at Happisburgh on the country's eastern coast."

27 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. And did these feet in ancient time by E-Sabbath · · Score: 4, Funny

    Walk upon England's mountains green?
    And was the holy Lamb of God
    On England's pleasant pastures seen?

    And did the Countenance Divine
    Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
    And was Jerusalem builded here
    Among these dark satanic mills?

    Bring me my bow of burning gold!
    Bring me my arrows of desire!
    Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
    Bring me my chariot of fire!

    I will not cease from mental fight,
    Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
    Till we have built Jerusalem
    In England's green and pleasant land.

    1. Re:And did these feet in ancient time by cold+fjord · · Score: 2

      "Jerusalem" performed by the Cadet Glee Club of West Point

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    2. Re:And did these feet in ancient time by cold+fjord · · Score: 2

      I'll admit I wasn't thinking clearly, I'd forgotten their penchant for extending their existence in the British isles backwards in history..In fact I may have heard that verse howled in Oxford last week, it went something like..

      Ug Ug ooh Ug,
      Ug oooh Ug Ug oooh,
      Ug Uggy Ug Ug ooh Ug Ug,

      Sorry, but you must not have been listening close enough. It was this, not Jerusalem.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  2. What does this mean for the "out of Africa" model? by Alsn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As far as I know, the model states that humans migrated from Africa a couple of hundred thousand years ago. Footsteps in Britain from "humans" 1 million years ago would seem to contradict this? Or does this simple mean that these footprints are a Neanderthal precursor species or something similar that's not actually "proper" humans?

    Anyone with some more knowledge of this care to shine a light on this?

  3. But we weren't there so SEE... by Capt.Gingi · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm sorry, but how can anyone really believe that these pre-date the creation of the planet? Was anyone THERE at THAT TIME to OBSERVE exactly when and by whom the footprints were made? Seems pretty silly to me to believe in this non-obervational "science"! I've got a good book that I can recommend that answers all these questions and more....

    1. Re:But we weren't there so SEE... by tylernt · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm sorry, but how can anyone really believe that these pre-date the creation of the planet? Was anyone THERE at THAT TIME to OBSERVE exactly when and by whom the footprints were made? Seems pretty silly to me to believe in this non-obervational "science"!

      You appear to be proceeding on the assumption that direct observation is the only reliable method of determining truth. By this standard, I must infer that you do not believe in God, since you have certainly never directly observed Him. Yes?

      --
      DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
    2. Re:But we weren't there so SEE... by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Informative

      I've got a good book that I can recommend that answers all these questions and more....

      Questions like:

      1. Can I sell my daughter into slavery? Yes!
      2. Should I avoid all contact with women during her period? Yes!
      3. Can I buy slaves from neighbouring nations? Yes!
      4. Should I kill someone who works on a Sunday? Yes!
      5. Can I eat shellfish? No!
      6. I have a lazy eye. Can I go to church? No!
      7. Can I get a haircut? No!

      Yup, good book that.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    3. Re:But we weren't there so SEE... by claytongulick · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Ok, I try to avoid getting involved in religious conversations like this, but you are coming across as a typical ignorant elitist here, sneering down at things you clearly don't understand. We all get that you aren't religious, but that doesn't give you the right to present skewed information taken out of context. So, I'm going to completely waste my time here and present some *actual* information on each one of your points in the vain hope that in the future you will temper your snark.

      Questions like:

      1. Can I sell my daughter into slavery? Yes!

      What you aren't saying, is that at the time selling children into slavery was a common practice throughout much of the "civilized" world. This 'law' was put in to place to *protect women*. The reason why is that normally when a child was sold into servitude, they would be freed after a period of time. Since (by far) the reason that women were taken as 'servants' or ('hand-maidens' depending on the interpretation) was as second wives or concubines, it was grossly unfair to the woman to then release her from service after she had been used as a sex object for years. No one would want to marry her, and she was essentially screwed. To protect against that, this law was put into place saying essentially, that if you're going to take this woman on, you have to care for her forever, you can't just have sex with her for a few years while she's pretty and then kick her out once she gets older.

      2. Should I avoid all contact with women during her period? Yes!

      Again, you're totally cherry picking here. Leviticus rules of cleanliness were generally *good* things. At the time, they simply didn't understand biology, and sanitary practices were spotty at best. This was the origin of laying down some rules for sanitary practices, which is a good thing, even if they seem strange to us now. And by the way, Leviticus' admonishments were by no means limited only to women:

      Leviticus 1-5:
      "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'When any man has a discharge from his body, his discharge is unclean. And this shall be his uncleanness in regard to his discharge; whether his body runs with his discharge, or his body is stopped up by his discharge, it is his uncleanness. Every bed is unclean on which he who has the discharge lies, and everything on which he sits shall be unclean. And whoever touches his bed shall wash his clothes and bathe in water, and be unclean until evening."

      This was relating to abnormal discharge, no one really understood STD's, they were just doing their best at the time. But great job completely misrepresenting Leviticus as anti-female in order to push some sort of agenda.

      3. Can I buy slaves from neighbouring nations? Yes!

      Again, you're totally misrepresenting the law here. A the time, this was incredibly progressive. Slavery was rampant and commonly accepted, to limit the bounds of slavery and who could be enslaved was a great step in the right direction. Considering that even the U.S. still hadn't worked out slavery issues as of only 140 years ago, applying 21st century morals to a progressive law created to put bounds and limits on slavery thousands of years ago... well, that's just childish.

      4. Should I kill someone who works on a Sunday? Yes!

      I don't even understand your point here. Are you saying this is still a problem? I mean, I agree - we need to stop the rampant slaughter of all the people who work on Sundays in America. Oh wait... you mean, this doesn't happen? At all? So, clearly it was a law intended for another time - a time that penalties were pretty damn harsh for just about any infraction. There's some question about how tightly this was int

      --
      Drinking habits can be dangerous. You can choke on the cloth and the nuns will wonder where their clothes are.
    4. Re:But we weren't there so SEE... by Barsteward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Again, you're totally cherry picking here."

      thats the typical way the religious interpret the bible so whats wrong with that, the religious only cherry pick the good secular bits and hide the bad religious stuff so don't point that accusation at people criticizing the bible

      --
      "The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
    5. Re:But we weren't there so SEE... by styrotech · · Score: 2

      So you're saying that readers of this writing should take account of the time and the cultural context of the writer(s) and not take it literally.

      As a somewhat naive (of these kinds of arguments) observer, it seems to me that you are actually agreeing with those you are apparently disagreeing with.

    6. Re:But we weren't there so SEE... by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What you aren't saying, is that at the time...
      At the time, they simply didn't understand... ...they were just doing their best at the time...
      So, clearly it was a law intended for another time...
      A the time, this was incredibly progressive...

      Thanks for re-making my actual point for me, which is not that the bible was written by idiots, but that it's still used, by many idiots, as a justification for their own prejudices and wilful ignorance of fact - which appeared to be the OP's position (with the caveat that the best satire is indistinguishable from that which it satirises).

      But great job completely misrepresenting Leviticus as anti-female

      I wasn't trying to represent it as anti-female. I'm trying to represent it as being millennia out of date.

      Religious or not, the Bible in an incredible historical document

      Agreed, both as you meant it and other meanings of the word "incredible." Though perhaps only "historical" in the sense of "written thousands of years ago," not "everything within actually happened

      that should be treated with respect and educated thoughtfulness

      Perhaps in some contexts. But not as a guide for living your life in the 21st century, which, again, is the position the OP took which I took issue with.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  4. Re:What does this mean for the "out of Africa" mod by JustOK · · Score: 4, Funny

    Same people. Primitive GPS was really bad but people still blindly followed directions.

    --
    rewriting history since 2109
  5. Re:old news by Koen+Lefever · · Score: 4, Informative

    old news... It was everywhere Thursday. Salshdot is really pathetic now, even the non beta page...

    It doesn't matter if it is old news, it doesn't matter if it is a dupe, it doesn't matter if the linked article is lame, it doesn't matter that some posters are trolls or shills.

    What does matter is: is there an intelligent/insightful discussion by the community? I learned a lot over the past 16 years by reading comments here.

    Unfortunately, that does not seem to matter to Dice, who wants /. to be a "B2B social network". If the Beta (which has the comments section as an afterthought, in stead of as the starting point of the redesign) goes live and Classic gets disabled, it will only be "Slashdot" in name.

    --
    /. refugees on Usenet: news:comp.misc
  6. Re:What does this mean for the "out of Africa" mod by Zocalo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Depends on the varient of the theory. One of those is that there were multiple diasporas of early humans out of Africa, but most of the early explorers died out in the ice ages or other calamities, while others may have survived longer to become the various off shoots of the human tree found in the fossil records. I'd say that idea doesn't really suffer from this find, if anything it strengthens it and establishes that humans must have started expanding out of their ancestral homelands much sooner than many may have thought and certainly doesn't prevent all of us current humans from from being decended from a much more recent Mitochondrial Eve that lived in Africa approx 100,000-200,000 years ago.

    --
    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
  7. Re:What does this mean for the "out of Africa" mod by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

    It would have been H. erectus, and since we view them,as members of genus Homo, it doesn't seem a huge stretch to call them humans.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  8. Re:What does this mean for the "out of Africa" mod by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    multiple diasporas are strongly supported by fossil and tool evidence

    this is just the first example of footprints as far north as Britain

    There is no clear proof that these were (they have already washed away) anything more than depressions that looked like footprints

  9. Re:The mammoth in the room by Geeky · · Score: 3, Informative

    There was a land bridge at the time - in fact until quite recently.

    --
    Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
  10. Arthur Philip Dent by denisbergeron · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's obviously footprint of Arthur Philip Dent when he was back in the past abord the phone's cleaner spaceship.

    --
    Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
  11. Re:What does this mean for the "out of Africa" mod by fermion · · Score: 2
    My view is it like the human population is continuously attempting to expand. The estimates that are in place now reflect when the expansions led to widespread colonization. For instance we may say that Australia had not human inhabintants prior to 50K years ago, but that does not mean it is impossible that we might find a small family group prior to that. After all, it was 200 years between the rediscovery of the continent and the first colony.

    In any case I don't know where your data comes from. There was significant population in Europe almost two million years ago, with significant finds correlating to this one 1 million years ago. It is true that Neandertal was a couple hundred thousand years ago, but that was a species thing, not the presence of Hominidae.

    It is true that through the 20th century the single migration theory out of africa was the preeminent explanation for how humans migrated. However, we are no seeing the picture is more complex.

    --
    "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
  12. Re:What does this mean for the "out of Africa" mod by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 2

    The researchers said the humans who left the footprints may have been related to Homo antecessor, or "pioneer man," whose fossilized remains have been found in Spain. That species died out about 800,000 years ago.

    Direct quote. Fuck me, I won't have to try very hard to boycott.

  13. Re:Science needs to be open to new ideas. by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 2

    Heidelberg (for Americans: Heidelburg)

    So sorry, but it's Heidelberg here in the States too.

    "berg" = hill, "burg" = city/town.

    Which is not to imply that there are people who can't spell Heidelberg here - after all, there are people who can't spell "their" here....

    --

    "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
  14. Shennanigans? by Toad-san · · Score: 2

    Look as closely at the "footprints" as you can in these images:

    http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

    And then consider this statement:

    http://www.independent.co.uk/n...
    "Of the 50 or so examples recorded, only around a dozen were reasonably complete - and only two showed the toes in detail. Tragically, although a full photogrammetric and photographic record has been made, all but one of the prints were rapidly destroyed by incoming tides before they could be physically lifted."

    Sooooo .. they existed (presumably buried by the seaside) for almost a million years .. appear, and then are DESTROYED by the next incoming tide?

    Riiiii-ight.

    1. Re:Shennanigans? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      PhD archaeologist here.

      It's incredibly common for formerly stable artifacts removed from a state of archaeo-geological stasis to rapidly degrade once exposed to a completely new set of formation factors. These can include air, light, water, or mechanical action.

      I myself have seen Roman Fresco fragments fade from a state of brilliant color to near colorlessness in less than 20 seconds when exposed to air by excavation. Similarly, these footprints were protected from air, light, and most importantly hydrological action by a relatively hard and impermeable layer of overburden. As soon as that was removed, the friable substrate the footprints were in was rapidly washed away.

  15. Re:Science needs to be open to new ideas. by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

    Heidelbergenisis is pretty hard to spell and pronounce. Homo Heildelbergvariousrandomplacesinanarcbetweenafricaandnorway would be quite a larger mouthful.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  16. Shennanigans? by Toad-san · · Score: 2

    I haven't walked the seashore. I haven't examined the sediments (and never will now, apparently). I'm certainly not the bearer of an archeology sheepskin from some exalted university.

    But ...

    http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

    http://www.independent.co.uk/i...

    Does anyone see more than two prints in any sort of logical and likely walking pattern? You know, one in front of the other, left foot, right foot? No, I didn't think so.

    "Of the 50 or so examples recorded, only around a dozen were reasonably complete - and only two showed the toes in detail. Tragically, although a full photogrammetric and photographic record has been made, all but one of the prints were rapidly destroyed by incoming tides before they could be physically lifted."

    That's odd: EVERY bare foot print I've ever seen clearly showed the toes (even Bigfoot's!). And how curious, that "footprints" cast in rock-hard sediment that has survived for a million years beside a seaside that's repeatedly changed depth over the milleniums .. suddenly are totally and almost completely destroyed by the very next incoming tide? How .. unfortunate.

    The Happisburgh geology (readily available with the most trivial search) also does not support this. The beach surfaces and their underlying sedimentary structure are NOT a million years old.

    https://www.bgs.ac.uk/landslid...
    http://books.google.com/books?...

    No, I'm sorry, I'm not buying this. Someone was seeing what they wanted to see.

  17. Re:What does this mean for the "out of Africa" mod by TapeCutter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yes, Homo Sapiens (proper humans) first appeared about 200kya. However there were other species of "humans" well before that, they too originated from Africa and walked upright. The ice ages regularly pushed the spread of all primates back toward the equator.

    Also if you (gasp) RTFA it tells you that the prints were probably left by Homo Antecessor, (pioneer man), sadly the prints were washed away 2 weeks after they were discovered so we can never know for sure.

    --
    And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  18. Hardly a news by manu0601 · · Score: 2

    BBC article on human presence in Britain one million years ago. With a nice map showing that Britain was not an island at that time.