800000-Year-old Human Footprints Found in UK [VIDEO]

A team of experts has uncovered foot-prints that are 800,000 years old in an archaeological site in Norfolk, East of England. The markings are oldest to be found outside of Africa.

Scientists at British Museum, Queen Mary University of London and the Natural History Museum have discovered the earliest hominid footprints on the banks of an ancient river estuary at Happisburgh in northeast Norfolk.

This geological puzzle along the English coast that was discovered in May 2013 offers the evidence of the first Homo sapiens in northern Europe outside Africa.

According to the British Museum, the site where the footprints were discovered lies beneath the beach sand in sediments found under a cliff. Over the last ten years these materials have been eroded at an alarming rate. Erosion due to the low tides exposed the earlier sediments present at the base of the cliff where the footprints were found.

Keeping in mind the eroding cliffs and persistent tides the scientists quickly took picture of the footprints. They noticed that after a two-week period, the five different footprints were gone.

"At first we weren't sure what we were seeing, but as we removed any remaining beach sand and sponged off the seawater, it was clear that the hollows resembled prints, and that we needed to record the surface as quickly as possible," Dr. Nick Ashton of the British Museum said in a statement.

Later the researchers used a technique called 'photogrammetry' that stitches together digital photographs and creates a permanent record and 3D images of the surface. It was based on the analysis of these pictures that the researchers confirmed that the elongated hollows on the sediments were ancient human footprints that were a mix of children as well as adults.

The anthropologists and evolutionary biologists in UK who examined the tracks believe that the footprints are related to an extinct form of human ancestor called Homo antecessor or Pioneer Man, source Telegraph.

"These people were of a similar height to us and were fully bipedal. They seem to have become extinct in Europe by 600,000 years ago and were perhaps replaced by the species Homo heidelbergensis. Neanderthals followed from about 400,000 years ago," Prof Chris Stringer at the Natural History Museum, according to the news release.

Norfolk during ancient times must have offered rich resources such as seaweed, shellfish, plant tubers etc for ancient humans. They got meat from the grazing herds. In the last 10 years the site has offered interesting finds such as stone tools, fossil bones and now footprints.

The findings were documented in the journal PLOS One.