SCHÖNINGEN, GERMANY—An international team of researchers found the oldest known human footprints from Germany at the Schöningen Paleolithic site complex in Lower Saxony, according to a statement released by the University of Tübingen. The fossilized hominin footprints, which date to some 300,000 years ago, were probably left by members of the species Homo heidelbergensis. Two of the three prints appear to belong to young individuals. University of Tübingen archaeologist Jordi Serangeli said that around the hominin prints, the team identified tracks belonging to the extinct elephant species Palaeoloxodon antiquus. “There is also one track from a rhinoceros—Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis or Stephanorhinus hemitoechus—which is the first footprint of either of these Pleistocene species ever found in Europe,” he said. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Quaternary Science Reviews. For more on Homo heidelbergensis, go to "Our Tangled Ancestry."
