90,000-Year-Old Human Footprints Found on a Beach in Morocco

Researchers found two sets of ancient human footprints on a beach in Morocco. They are some of the largest and best-preserved footprints ever discovered.

This discovery was revealed in a study published on January 23rd in the journal Scientific Reports. However, scientists found these footprints in 2022 while examining large rocks on a beach in North Africa.

“Between tides, I said to my team that we should go north to explore another beach,” Mouncef Sedrati, the lead author of the study and an associate professor at the University of Southern Brittany in France, told Live Science. “We were surprised to find the first print. At first, we weren’t convinced it was a footprint, but then we found more of the trackway.”

85 footprints of five early modern humans

The examination of the site, the only one of its kind known in North Africa and the Southern Mediterranean, uncovered two tracks with a total of 85 human footprints on the beach. These footprints were left by a group of at least five early modern humans.

Scientists used a method called optically stimulated luminescence dating to figure out the approximate timeframe of these footprints. This technique helps determine the last time specific minerals near an artifact were exposed to heat or sunlight.

🗞️ 90,000-year-old human footprints found on a Moroccan beach are some of the oldest and best preserved in the world

Two trails of ancient human footprints pressed into a beach in Morocco form one of the largest and best-preserved trackways in the world.

Researchers happened… pic.twitter.com/ENLkpfjDCF

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By studying the age of the tiny grains of quartz in the sand of the gently sloped beach, researchers concluded that a group of Homo sapiens walked there approximately ninety thousand years ago.

This event might have occurred during the Late Pleistocene, also known as the last ice age, which concluded around 11,700 years ago, according to the study.

Sedrati explained that they measured the prints right there to figure out how long and deep they were. By looking at the pressure and size of the footprints, they could estimate the age of the people who made them. This group included children, teenagers, and adults.

The final preservation of the footprints

Researchers attribute the preservation of the ancient footprints to several factors, as outlined in the study.

Sedrati explained that what makes it outstanding is the beach’s location on a rocky platform covered in clay sediments. These sediments provide favorable conditions to keep the footprints intact on the sandbar. Meanwhile, the tides quickly buried the beach, leading to the exceptional preservation of the footprints.

The researchers are not sure about the activities of the ice age group on the beach. They believe that further examination of the site might provide answers to this mystery.

However, time is of the essence because, as noted in the study, “the ongoing collapse of the rocky shore platform…could lead to its eventual demise.”