Computer And Technology News: 800,000 years of: The oldest traces of human habitation outside of Africa discovered

Saturday, February 8, 2014

800,000 years of: The oldest traces of human habitation outside of Africa discovered - T-Online

800,000 years of

Oldest human footprints outside of Africa
02.08.2014, 14:42 clock | AFP

This is an ancient footprint.
: As the scientists safely (Dr. Martin Bates, University of Wales Trinity Saint David source) are

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The layman may wonder whether the people in the earliest prehistoric times the British weather and food have attracted – the scientist certainly not interested. Yet it does mean that the footprints found in the east of England are the oldest ever found -. Outside of Africa

Africa is well known as the cradle of mankind. The oldest human footprints found there date from Tanzania and Kenya and are 3.5 and 1.5 million years old.

fossil footsteps that were found now on the beach of Happisburgh in Norfolk, come at least 800,000 years. They were discovered near an archaeological site on the coast at low tide when the waves had washed away the sand over an underlying layer of silt.

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family as a hunting group

had become clear to them that they are human footprints on closer investigation, and that they must be documented as soon as possible the surface before they would be washed away by the sea water, said Nick Ashton, a specialist at the British Museum in London.

Judging by the size of the prints they come from a man, as well as several smaller people, probably women and children. If it were apparently less a hunt group, as a family.

dating revealed, according to Ashton from the geological position of the discovery site and the nearby fossils discovered later extinct horses and mammoths.

delivery on two legs

Maybe the footprints in Norfolk of people Homo antecessor of the genus have been left. As explained Chris Stringer from the Natural History Museum in London, it involves a kindred with the modern human species, which walked on two legs.

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Homo antecessor died in Europe from about 600,000 years ago and was probably replaced by Homo heidelbergensis . This again was followed by about 400,000 years ago the Neanderthals, who was eventually replaced around 40,000 years ago by modern humans.

08.02.2014, 14:42 clock | AFP

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