Fossilized footprints at Langebaan Lagoon, South Africa

In 1997 a sequence of human footprints was discovered by field geologist Dave Roberts on the shore of Langebaan Lagoon, just North of Cape Town, South Africa in hardened sand-dune deposits dated at approximately 117,000 years old. The prints have been documented , cast, and preserved by the Museum of South Africa, where some are now on display. Similar prints preserved as natural casts (infillings of the original track depressions) were found nearby in the 1960's at Nahoon Point, East London, South Africa.

Human-like prints have been found in even older sediments, such as the "Laetoli prints" in hardened volcanic ash in Tanzania dated at over 3 million years. However, they have been attributed to hominids (human ancestors), whereas the Langebaan Lagoon footprints are evidently the oldest prints reliably ascribed to fully modern humans.

Although strict creationist Jeff Brenner (2006) included the Langebaan Lagoon tracks on his site devoted to anomalous footprints, he acknowledged that all workers agree that they are human and authentic. Moreover, finding human tracks in strata over 100,000 years old is not really problematic, as this is within the timespan when other human remains and artifacts are known, and is not in conflict with mainstream geology. The only aspect of the finding some creationists would dispute is the age of the dunes (most strict creationists maintain the earth itself is less than 10 or 15 thousand years old).

References

Avery, Graham, 1998, South African Museum web article: "Human footprints from the langebaan lagoon in the west coast national park"

Brenner, Jeff, 2006. Website article at: www.bennerwc.com/ancientman/02_langebaan.html. In 2007 the website was removed.

Deacon, H.J. 1966. "The dating of the Nahoon footprints." South African Journal of Science 62: 111-113.

Gore, R., 1997. "The dawn of humans. Tracking the first of our kind." National geographic magazine 192 (3): 92-99.

Hunt, Steven, 1997, Hunting Hominids website article: "Oldest human footprints ever discovered - 117,000 years old."

Mountain, E.D., 1966. "Footprints in calcareous sandstone at Nahoon Point." South African Journal of Science 62: 103-111.

Roberts, D. & Berger, L.R., 1997. "Last Interglacial (c. 117 Kr) human footprints from South Africa." South African Journal of Science 93(8): 349-350.