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The oldest fingerprints made by pre-humans are over six million years old, scientists have revealed.
About 50 of the tracks were identified near the village of Trachilos at the western end of the Greek island of Crete in 2002.
They were found in a type of sedimentary rock that formed on the edge of the ancient Mediterranean Sea.
Now dating techniques have shown them to be 6.05 million years old, making them the oldest direct evidence of a human foot being used for walking.
While it’s not clear which species left them, the footprints have a distinctly human shape, with a big toe similar to ours and a “bullet” in the sole not found in monkeys.
One of the 50 or so footprints of Trachilos. The footprints were found in a type of sedimentary rock that formed when the Mediterranean Sea briefly dried up
Photograph of two prints, published in the 2017 newspaper, “possibly representing a static position of an individual”
Six million years ago, Crete was still attached to mainland Greece, which means that the first hominids could have lived in south-eastern Europe as well as in Africa.
The “Trachilos Footprints” are nearly 2.5 million years older than traces attributed to an ancient pre-human species called Australopithecus afarensis, native to Laetoli in Tanzania, Africa. A. afarensis is the species to which the famous human ancestor ‘Lucy’ belongs.
The shape of the Trachilos footprints indicates that they belong to an ancient hominid, a little more primitive than A. afarensis.
They were carried out on a sandy seashore, perhaps a small river delta, while the tracks of Laetoli were carried out in volcanic ash.
The footprints are like any other fossil and can be aged using “foraminifera biostratigraphy” – the analysis of single-celled organisms called foraminifera to determine the age of the rock.
The Trachilos prints provide a stunning snapshot of a single moment in ancient history, but the species that made them is unknown.
“The oldest human foot used for standing walking had a ball, with a strong parallel big toe and increasingly shorter lateral toes,” said Per Ahlberg, Uppsala University professor and co-author of the study.
“The foot had a shorter sole than Australopithecus. An arch was not yet pronounced and the heel was narrower.
In a 2017 study, the rock in which the footprints were found was dated to about 5.7 million years ago, which is about two million years earlier than the first hominid footprints discovered before.
The footprints are located near the village of Trachilos at the western end of the Greek island of Crete
Pictured is a rock slab containing the footprints near Trachilos overlooking the Mediterranean Sea
But study author Dr Uwe Kirscher of the University of Tübingen told MailOnline today that his team are now providing a “more robust and accurate age” for footprints.
The age in 2017 was “just an estimate,” he said, based on the mistaken assumption that the overlying sediment is linked to the Messinian salinity crisis – the drying up of the Mediterranean it about 5 to 6 million years ago.
“Sediment related to the crisis is absent in this part of Crete,” said Dr Kirscher.
Several of the authors of the 2017 article are the authors of this new study. One of them, Professor Ahlberg, also told MailOnline that the previous aging “turns out to have been incomplete and slightly flawed”.
Photos and digital scans of three of the “well-preserved fingerprints”. Each is represented by a photo (left), a laser surface scan (middle), and an interpretive scan (right). a) was done by a left foot, b) and c) by a right foot. Scale bars, 1.9 inch (5 cm)
For the analysis, the researchers used geophysical and micropaleontological methods to age the Trachilos footprints, which were made on a sandy seashore.
The new estimate places them at the same age as the fossils of the standing walking primate Orrorin tugenensis, which originated in Kenya and lived 6.1 to 5.8 million years ago.
The feet of our closest relatives (the other great apes) are more like a human hand, with a thumb-shaped hallux sticking out the side. In the photo, a gorilla foot
While Trachilos’ footprints are described as pre-human, they are remarkably similar to ours given their age, keeping in mind that the first Homo sapiens appeared a few hundred thousand years ago.
Human feet have a very distinctive shape, unlike any other land animal.
The combination of a long sole, five short toes pointing forward without claws, and a hallux (“big toe”) larger than the other toes is unique.
In comparison, the feet of our closest relatives (the other great apes) look more like a human hand, with a thumb-shaped hallux sticking out the side.
Trachilos’ footprints have an unmistakably human shape – and this is especially true of the toes.
The big toe is similar to ours in terms of shape, size and position. It is also associated with a distinct “ball” on the sole, which is never present in monkeys.
The “Trachilos Footprints” are nearly 2.5 million years older than traces attributed to an ancient pre-human species called Australopithecus afarensis (artist photo), from Laetoli in Tanzania, Africa. A. afarensis is the species to which the famous human ancestor ‘Lucy’ belongs
Artist’s impression of Orrorin tugenensis, originally from Kenya and who lived 6.1 to 5.8 million years ago
The footprints left in Tanzania by A. afarensis are quite similar to those of modern humans, except that the heel is narrower and the sole does not have a proper arch.
In contrast, Ethiopia’s 4.4-million-year-old Ardipithecus ramidus, the oldest known hominid from fairly complete fossils, has a monkey’s foot.
Researchers who described the Ardipithecus argued that it was a direct ancestor of later hominids, implying that a human-like foot had not yet evolved at that time.
The new study was published in the journal Scientific Reports.
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