What 100,000-year-old footprints in Morocco tell us about early humans

AL JAZEERA 

What can indentations in the ground from ages ago tell us about our early ancestors? A lot, it turns out.

In January, an international team of scientists from Morocco, France, Germany and Spain published details of a fascinating discovery: a set of well-preserved human footprints believed to be 100,000 years old.

The footprints are thought to be from a group of five individuals and were found on a rocky beach in a northern Moroccan town.

The research, published in the science journal Nature, adds to a growing body of work that’s helping scientists piece together the evasive, true origins of the human race. But while their discovery is an archaeological feat, coastal erosion threatens the existence of these ancient tracks.

Here’s what we know about this latest find and about other ancient human traces that scientists have discovered so far.

What did scientists find in Morocco?

In June 2022, archaeologist Mouncef Sedrati was leading field research focused on boulders close to the Moroccan shoreline in an area south of Tangier when his team stumbled on indentations in the ground at the city of Larache.

On closer look, they discovered the indentations were footprints of varying sizes. To Sedrati, a coastal dynamics and marine geology expert at France’s University of Southern Brittany, it was an “exceptional” sight.

“We weren’t 100 percent sure at first with the first print, but little by little, we found a second, third, then a very clear trackway and more and more,” Sedrati told Al Jazeera.”That’s when the doubt disappeared. The initial traces were left by healthy Homo [sapiens] on a sandy beach sediment around 100,000 years ago.”

About 85 footprints were found in total, likely made by a group of five humans who were walking towards the water, using the site as a path. These are the first early human tracks to have been discovered in North Africa and the Southern Mediterranean.

The arch of the indentations, rounded heels and the marks of short toes confirmed that they were tracks from Homo sapiens or modern humans like us. Their varying foot sizes suggested there were adults and children of different ages.

The scientists, though, still do not know what the group was doing at the location. Were they trying to gather food from the sea? Or were they simply navigating through the area and came across the beach route by chance…