Media coverage
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Media coverage
Title Ancient footprints reveal 'Irish Sea Serengeti' Media name/outlet BBC News Media type Web Country/Territory United Kingdom Date 3/10/22 Description "It's about 8,200 years old," says Dr Alison Burns, pointing to a perfectly preserved human footprint pressed into ancient mud on Formby Beach.
It is one of hundreds of newly discovered ancient footprints here.
The sandy stretch of the north-west England coast is already known to be home to one of the largest collections of prehistoric animal tracks on Earth.
As well as adding to that collection, researchers found the oldest prints were formed much earlier than thought.
The first date back almost 9,000 years and the youngest of the prints are medieval - about 1,000 years old.
These findings, published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, tell the story of a coastal environment that transformed over thousands of years, as sea levels rapidly rose and humans settled permanently by the water.
The size and shape of the picture-perfect human footprint that Dr Burns has found suggest it belonged to a young man - perhaps a teenager. Strangely, this adolescent foot had the very distinct protrusion of a bunion on its little toe.URL https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-63036911 Persons Jamie Woodward
Keywords
- archaeology
- palaeontology
- pre-history