THREE primitive humans who scrambled down a volcano’s slopes more than 325,000 years ago have left their footprints fossilised in volcanic ash. If the ages of the trails are confirmed, they will be the earliest known footprints of our Homo ancestors.
Paolo Mietto of Padua University in Italy and his team examined three sets of footprints on the Roccamonfina volcano in southern Italy. Known to locals as “devils’ trails”, the footprints are fossilised in ash deposited by an eruption that has been dated to 385,000 to 325,000 years ago by radiometric techniques.
One person left a track…
