SHARE:
KUTZTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA—Science News reports that human footprints found in a Romanian cave in the 1960s and initially dated to 15,000 years ago are actually 35,000 years old, making them some of the oldest such prints in Europe. Radiocarbon dating of cave bear bones found just below the prints allowed a team of anthropologists, led by Kutztown University’s David Webb, to re-date the tracks, which were left by six or seven people, including one child. Some 400 footprints were initially discovered, but over the years explorers and tourists have damaged the site, and only 51 now remain. Three-dimensional mapping of the prints has allowed the researchers to reconstruct human movement throughout the cave.
