Ice Age footprints discovered in a dry lake bed in Australia

SYDNEY: Hundreds of human footprints dating back 20,000 years to the Ice Age have been discovered in a dry lake bed in Australia, scientists said on Thursday.

University of Melbourne archaeologist Matthew Cupper told Australian radio that they were the earliest footprint fossils found in the country. “It's really quite a remarkable find. It's a little snapshot in time. The possibilities are endless in terms of getting a window into past aboriginal society.”

They were left by adults, teenagers and children walking and running across moist clay flats near Willandra Lakes, southwest of Sydney, the university archaeologists who made the discovery said. The prints, ranging in size from 5.1 to 11.8 inches, provide an insight into the anatomy and behaviour of the people who left them, they said in an on-line report in the Journal of Human Evolution.

“The size of the prints and the pace lengths in most trackways indicate tall individuals who were able to achieve high running speeds.”

Some of the people appeared to be hunting, with emu and kangaroo footprints also in the area and what appeared to be spear holes in the ground, they said. One man, estimated at six feet tall, appeared to be sprinting at about 20 kmh.

The report said 457 footprints, “'the largest collection of Pleistocene human footprints in the world”, has been the second such discovery in Australia.