The world’s oldest human footprints found in South Africa

An international team of archaeologists discovered and identified in South Africa the most ancient (to date) footprints left by our distant ancestors more than 150,000 years ago. In addition to these were found many other artifacts: bones, tools, art and others.

The team determined the age – from 73000 to 153000 years – of the seven sites of ancient people on the southern coast of South Africa. It was at the last stop on this list and were found the oldest footprints left by man.

The age of the find was determined by optically stimulated luminescence method. Its essence is that scientists extract grains of quartz and other minerals from the samples, and then influence them with ionizing radiation, causing the crystals to fluoresce, then the quality of the glow to determine how long they were underground.

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