Scientists have discovered the oldest traces of Homo sapiens - they are 153,000 years old

Miscellaneous / by admin / May 30, 2023

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However, this record may be broken in the coming years.

An international team of archaeologists have discovered 153,000-year-old Homo sapiens footprints in South Africa. These are the oldest footprints human ancestorsthat are known to science. Study this was published in the journal Ichnos.

The find was made on the territory of the Garden Route National Park (South Africa). For dating, scientists used the method of optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) - it is based on determining the point in time when a mineral or some other object was last placed on light.

Although Africa, Asia, and Europe have older evidence of other species hominids, footprints in South Africa are the oldest left by Homo sapiens, the study notes. Human ancestors are thought to have evolved in Africa about 300,000 years ago.

Image of a 3D photogrammetric footprint from a site close to where the most ancient prints were found. This specimen is younger, no more than 90,000 years old, but it is one of the best preserved. Photo: Charles Helm

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Most of the specimens we have studied are between 70,000 and 130,000 years old, and we were pleasantly surprised to find 153,000 years old among them. This discovery spurred the search for traces of hominids in what we know to be even older deposits.

Charles Helm

Research Fellow at Nelson Mandela University (South Africa)

We are talking about the southern coast of Cape Town (South Africa), where new excavations are planned to begin in the near future. By the way, only 14 traces older than 50 thousand years, attributed to Homo sapiens, were discovered before, and all of them were found in Africa.