Stone Age Footwork: Ancient human prints turn up down under
By Bruce Bower
Researchers working near the shore of a dried-up lake basin in southeastern Australia have taken a giant leap backward in time. They’ve uncovered the largest known collection of Stone Age human footprints.
The 124-or-more human-foot impressions, as well as a few prints left by kangaroos and other animals, originated between 23,000 and 19,000 years ago in a then-muddy layer of silt and clay, say archaeologist Steve Webb of Australia’s Bond University in Robina and his colleagues. Their report appears in the January Journal of Human Evolution.