More than 80 of the earliest human footprints in North Africa, which date back to 100,000 years, have been found by Moroccan archaeologists.
Archaeologists from Morocco, Spain, France, and Germany found the footprints on the coast of Larache, a city 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of Tangier. The footprints were likely made by five homo sapiens, including youngsters.
“This group (of homo sapiens) was crossing the beach towards the sea, probably in search of food and shellfish,” Anass Sedrati, curator at the archaeological site of Lixus Larache, told AFP.
“They were probably fishermen or gatherers.”
The researchers, whose study was published in scientific journal Nature in January, said the footprints were some of the world’s best-preserved human traces and the oldest in North Africa and the southern Mediterranean.
“This discovery was made during a field mission in July 2022, as part of a scientific research project on the origins and dynamics of the boulders strewn along the coastline,” said the researchers led by France’s Universite Bretagne Sud.
The discovery of about 300,000-year-old homo sapiens remains in northwest Morocco in 2017 caused the estimated genesis of the human species to be retracted by 100,000 years.
Anass Sedrati stated that animal traces had also been found and that the footprints in Larache were more evidence of the region’s significance in human history.
“We must preserve this remarkable heritage site, even if it is threatened by rising sea levels and storms,” Mouncef Sedrati, head of the research project, told AFP.
“Other footprints will be discovered as sediments erode,” Sedrati said.
“It would be interesting then to follow this erosion and uncover new traces that would provide more details on homo sapiens who lived along this coast.”
