In Germany, scientists believe the earliest human footprints in mankind have been uncovered. Found in the roughly 300,000-year-old Schöningen Paleolithic site in the Lower Saxony region, the prints have helped scientists learn more about the history of the world’s ecosystem hundreds of thousands of years ago.
In this peer-reviewed study, scientists learned that footprints are believed to belong to Homo heidelbergensis, which was the first human species to live in cold weather and the first species to build shelters, creating simple dwellings out of wood and rock, according to the Smithsonian Institute.
Scientists believe these footprints helped depict the ecological makeup of the area at the time.
In the newly published study, Dr. Flavio Altamura, who is currently a fellow at the participating university’s Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, made crucial observations. “This is what it might have looked like at Schöningen in Lower Saxony 300,000 years ago,” Altamura explained.
“These tracks, together with information from sedimentological, archaeological, paleontological, and paleobotanical analyses, provide us with insights into the paleoenvironment and the mammals that once lived in this area.”
