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800,000-year-old human footprints found in Norfolk 850,000-year-old human footprints found in Norfolk
(about 5 hours later)
The oldest human footprints ever found outside Africa, left in a muddy river estuary 800,000 years ago, have been discovered in Norfolk by scientists from the British Museum and other national museums and universities. The oldest human footprints ever found outside Africa, dated at between 850,000 and 950,000 years old, have been discovered on the storm-lashed beach at Happisburgh in Norfolk, one of the fastest eroding stretches of the British coast. Within a fortnight the sea tides that exposed the prints last May destroyed them, leaving only casts and 3D images made through photogrammetry – by stitching together hundreds of photographs – as evidence that a little group from a long-extinct early human species had passed that way.
The prints were left by a small group of people heading south across the estuary at Happisburgh, through a landscape where mammoths, hippos and rhinoceros grazed. Scientists believe they were a group of adults and children, including one with a foot size the equivalent of a modern size 8 shoe, suggesting a man about 1.7 metres (5ft 7ins) tall. They walked through a startlingly different landscape from today's, along the estuary of what may have been the original course of the Thames, through a river valley grazed by mammoths, hippos and rhinoceros. The pattern of the prints suggests at least five individuals heading southward, pausing and pottering about to gather plants or shellfish along the bank. They included several children. The best preserved prints, clearly showing heel, arch and four toes – one may not have left a clear impression – is of a man with a foot equivalent to a modern size 8 shoe, suggesting an individual about 5ft 7ins (1.7 metres ) tall.
The footprints are the first direct evidence of the earliest known humans in northern Europe, previously revealed only by the stone tools and animal bones they left scattered. "This is an extraordinarily rare discovery," said Nick Ashton, a scientist at the British Museum where the find was announced. "The Happisburgh site continues to rewrite our understanding of the early human occupation of Britain and indeed of Europe."
Within a fortnight of the discovery last May, the sea tides that had exposed the footprints destroyed them, on one of the fastest eroding parts of the East Anglian coast. However, Nick Ashton of the British Museum and other scientists managed to record them before they vanished, including taking casts of some of the best-preserved prints. Although far older footprints have been found in Africa, the prints are more than twice the age of the previous oldest in Europe, from southern Italy and dated to around 345,000 years.
"This is an extraordinarily rare discovery," Ashton said. "The Happisburgh site continues to rewrite our understanding of the early human occupation of Britain and indeed of Europe." The Norfolk footprints are the first direct evidence of people at the most northerly edge of habitation in Europe, otherwise known only from fossilised animal bones and flint implements from a site nearby. The scientists worked flat out in the few hours between tides, sponging away seawater and brushing off sand, to record the prints. They were dated from the overlying sedimentary layers and glacial deposits, and the fossil remains of extinct animals – identified by Simon Parfitt, of the Natural History Museum, as including mammoth, an extinct type of horse and an early form of vole.
As winter storms batter the coast, the scientists hope that further erosion may expose more footprints. No human fossils have been found but the scientists from national museums and universities, who have been working at Happisburgh for a decade, believe they must be there and that there is a good chance more footprints will be exposed in a coastline crumbling on every tide – there has been 30 metres of erosion at the site since the find. Local people keep a near daily watch on the beach and phone the scientists if they spot anything interesting.
Last May, when the sea scoured away a layer of beach sand and exposed the prints, the scientists immediately believed the long oval hollows were from a prehistoric layer. "At first we weren't sure what we were seeing," Ashton said, "but as we removed any remaining beach sand and sponged off the seawater, it was clear that the hollows resembled prints, perhaps human footprints, and that we needed to record the surface as quickly as possible before the sea eroded it away." "It's a needle in a haystack," said Prof Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum, a world authority on early humans. "There is the tiny chance of being in the right place at the right time, and recognising what you're seeing – if it's a bit of human rib going out on the tide, you might miss it completely."
Photogrammetry, which combines photographs to create a 3D image, confirmed that they were indeed footprints, perhaps of five individuals. Some were clear enough to show heel, arch and toes – allowing an estimate of the height of the individuals at 0.9-1.7 metres. The climate was close to that of modern Scandinavia, with warm summers and very cold winters, when the group walked across the wet mud. With the river, plain and brackish pools there was abundant food including prey animals, shellfish and edible plants. However, very soon in geological terms, perhaps within 50,000 years, the weather got much worse and the humans retreated back across the landbridge to the continent and further south.
The footprints were dated from the geology, lying beneath later glacial deposits and the fossil remains of extinct animals, which Simon Parfitt, of the Natural History Museum, has identified as including mammoth, an extinct type of horse and an early form of vole. Stringer says confirmation will have to wait for fossil finds, but he believes the Norfolk hominids were related to people from Atapuerca in Spain described as Homo antecessor, pioneer man. He believes they became extinct in Europe, perhaps replaced by another early human species, Homo heidelbergensis, then by Neanderthals from around 400,000 years ago and finally by modern humans. Life was not always a stroll across a beach: the Spanish human fossils show the same cut marks as the animal bones, evidence of cannibalism.
On the day the small group walked across the wet mud, Britain was still joined to continental Europe. Their river valley, surrounded by coniferous forest, with saltmarsh and freshwater pools, offered a rich variety of food, including edible plants and seaweed, shellfish and animals for meat. The Happisburgh find will be included in an exhibition opening next week at the Natural History Museum, Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story.
So far no fossil remains of the humans have been found. Chris Stringer, of the Natural History Museum, an expert on early man, believes they were related to people from Atapuerca in Spain described as Homo antecessor, pioneer man. He believes they became extinct in Europe, perhaps replaced by another early human species, Homo heidelbergensis, then by Neanderthals from around 400,000 years ago and finally by modern humans.
The oldest hominid prints ever found, at Laetoli in Tanzania, are about 3.5 million years old, while those found at Lleret in Kenya in 2009 – of people who seem to have walked erect and with a similar gait to modern humans – have been dated to around 1.5 million years ago.
The Norfolk tracks are more than twice the age of the previous oldest found in Europe. Those, left in volcanic ash in the Campanian plain of southern Italy, were nicknamed the Devil's Footprints because they appeared to the modern residents to have been left in solid rock, and have been dated to around 345,000 years.
The oldest footprints in the Americas – some found in the Mexican desert in 1961, followed by further examples discovered last year – are dated to about 10,500 years.
The Happisburgh project has been running for more than 10 years. The discoveries of the team form part of a new exhibition opening next week at the Natural History Museum, Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story.