Posted on 09/01/2017 1:41:22 PM PDT by Red Badger
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Controversial footprint discovery suggests human-like creatures may have roamed Crete nearly 6m years ago
The human foot is distinctive. Our five toes lack claws, we normally present the sole of our foot flat to the ground, and our first and second toes are longer than the smaller ones. In comparison to our fellow primates, our big toes are in line with the long axis of the foot – they don't stick out to one side.
In fact, some would argue that one of the defining characteristics of being part of the human clade is the shape of our foot. So imagine our surprise when we discovered fossil footprints with remarkable, human-like characteristics at Trachilos, Crete, that are 5.7m years old. This research, published in the Proceedings of the Geologist Association, is controversial as it suggests that the earliest human ancestors may have wandered around southern Europe as well as East Africa.
The period corresponds to a geological time interval known as the Miocene. The footprints are small tracks made by someone walking upright on two legs – there are 29 of them in total. They range in size from 94mm to 223mm, and have a shape and form very similar to human tracks. Non-human ape footprints look very different; the foot is shaped more like a human hand, with the big toe attached low on the side of the sole and sticking out sideways.
The footprints were dated using a combination of fossilised marine microorganisms called foraminifera and the character of the local sedimentary rocks. Foraminifera evolve very rapidly and marine sedimentary rocks can be dated quite precisely on the basis of the foraminifera they contain. These indicated an age somewhere in the span 8.5m to 3.5m years. However, at the very end of the Miocene, about 5.6m years ago, an extraordinary thing happened: the entire Mediterranean sea dried out for some time. This event left a clear signature in the sediments of the surrounding areas. The sediments that contain the footprints suggest they probably date to the period immediately before this, at about 5.7m years.
Oldest known footpints. =================================================================
Cradle of humanity
The "cradle of humanity" has long been thought to lie in Africa, with most researchers suggesting that Ethiopia was where the human lineage originated. The earliest known body fossils that are accepted as hominins (members of the human lineage) by most researchers are Sahelanthropus tchadensis from Chad (about 7m years old), Orrorin tugenensis from Kenya (about 6m years old) and Ardipithecus kadabba from Ethiopia (about 5.8-5.2m years old).
The oldest known footprints, however, were found at Laetoli in Tanzania and come from the next geological time interval, the Pliocene. These are some 3.66m years old and even more human-like than those of Trachilos. The second oldest tracks are those at Ileret made by Homo erectus (1.5m years old), and are little different from the tracks that we ourselves might make today.
If – and for many it is a big if – the tracks of Trachilos were indeed made by an early human ancestor, then the biogeographical range of our early ancestors would increase to encompass the eastern Mediterranean. Crete was not an island at this time but attached to the Greek mainland, and the environment of the Mediterranean region was very different from now.
The discovery comes just months after another study reported the discovery of 7m-year-old Greek and Bulgarian fossil teeth from a hominin ape dubbed "El Graeco". This is the oldest fossil of a human-like ape, which has led some to suggest that humans started to evolve in Europe hundreds of thousands of years before they started to evolve in Africa. But many scientists have remained sceptical about this claim – as are we. The presence of Miocene hominids in Europe and Africa simply shows that both continents are possible "homelands" for the group. In theory, El Graeco could be responsible for the Trachilos foorprints but without any limb or foot bones it is impossible to tell.
Alternative solutions
But there are other ways to interpret the findings. Some might suggest that the distinctive anatomy of a human-like foot could have evolved more than once. The tracks could have been made by a hitherto unknown Miocene primate that had a foot anatomy and locomotive style not unlike our own.
There are examples throughout the fossil record of what is called "convergent evolution" – two unrelated animals developing similar anatomical features as adaptations to a particular lifestyle. However, there is nothing about the Trachilos footprints themselves that suggests such convergence.
Convergence rarely produces perfect duplicates; rather, you tend to get an odd mix of similarities and differences, like you see when you compare a shark and a dolphin for example. Now, imagine if the Trachilos footprints combined human-like characters with a few other characters that simply didn't "fit": for example, that the toes looked human-like but carried big claws. This would be a reason to suspect that the human-like features could be convergent. But the Trachilos footprints don't show any such discordant characters, they simply look like primitive hominin footprints as far as we can tell.
For those unable to see beyond Africa as the "human cradle", these tracks present a considerable challenge, and it has not been easy to get the discovery published. Some have even questioned whether the observed features are footprints at all. However, collectively, the researchers behind this study have published over 400 papers on tracks, so we are pretty confidence we know what they are.
Although the results are controversial, suggesting that the rich East African evidence for early hominids may not be telling the whole story, it's important that we take the findings seriously. The Trachilos tracksite deserves to be protected and the evidence should be debated by scientists.
It is now for the researchers in the field to embark on finding more tracks or, better still, body fossils that will help us to better understand this interesting period of primate diversity, which ultimately led to our own evolution irrespective of where this first happened. The very essence of this type of science is prospection, discovery, evidence-based inference and debate. We are sure that this paper will stimulate debate; let us hope that it also stimulates further discoveries.
‘All Cretans are liars’
or is it ‘All cretins are liars’
Whatever. Fits Franken either way.
"The inhabitants who had been caught by the Flood ran up to the higher regions of the island. And when the sea kept rising higher and higher, they prayed to the native gods, and since their lives were spared, to commemorate their rescue they set up boundary stones around the entire circuit of the island and dedicated altars upon which they offer sacrifices even to the present day." [link, may be dead]The melting of the glaciers took place supposedly over centuries, but evidence says otherwise. The failure of the Black Sea to fill at a similar pace to the world's oceans is illogical under assumptions of uniformity, since the Black Sea would be filling up with glacial meltwater at the same time as the rest of the world's seas, and arguably should have been doing so at a faster pace.
Various points of interest from Thunderbolts Forum:
An Alternative to Plate Expansion Tectonics
The exploration of the solar system over the last 50 years has revealed a huge amount of information about the individual planets and their satellites but none of the terrestrial planets or satellites exhibit anywhere near the amount of geological activity evident on the Earth.
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=16534
Colossal Flood Created the Mediterranean Sea
livescience | 09 December 2009 | Andrea Thompson
Posted on 01/11/2010 11:13:34 AM PST by JoeProBono
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2425936/posts
5.7 Million-year-old footprints found on Greek Island challenge human evolution theory
https://www.greecehighdefinition.com/blog/2019/2/12/57-million-year-old-footprints-found-on-greek-island-challenge-human-evolution-theory
Before Rozel, only nine confirmed Neanderthal footprints have been found in Greece, Romania, Gibraltar and France.
https://www.thelocal.fr/20190910/neanderthal-footprints-discovered-along-shoreline-in-northern-france
also see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3782036/posts
Note: this topic is from . Thanks again Red Badger. A re-ping.
The Time Before Podiatrists.
Not saying this is the case with these particular prints but I do wonder if some of the oddball ones are left by modern humans that went a life time with no foot protection at all and no way to heal what got broke other than just leave it to fix itself however the broke part decided to. As well as swellings from infections from stickers, splinters or bits of sharp rock shard from a recent spear point napping that got stepped on.
Here's some pertinent topics from the FRchives:
The Rhyme of the Really Really Ancient Mariner !
I’m having a hard time believing this because the big toe curves inward—which is what you see when people wear shoes.
Really primitive people in the amazon and new guinea who spend their lives walking on bare feet—have their big toes splayed outward. Their other toes splay as well. Something we don’t see here. Rather we see a well groomed foot that looks like its spent a life time in shoes.
If I remember correctly, Pangaea existed before or early in the rise of the dinosaurs. Since the dinosaurs all died 65 million ya, there is no possibility that your theory could be correct.
Isn’t there a foot condition called hammer toe that could produce a print like that. Basically, the second toe overlapping the bent big toe.
Have you seen the stories about the footprints in Texas in the Dinosaur park or in Mexico where the human footprints appear to be walking near Dino tracks.?/
the multitude of new anthropological finds is becoming overwhelming.
Hobbits and lions and tigers oh my!
The Paluxy River Footprints (Glen Rose, TX) aren't human tracks, assuming they are authentic in the first place. Some of them look like human tracks, apart from their great size, and by great size, I mean, larger than any human has ever been. They are dino tracks.
I couldn’t go to Aliencon in my area because of caring for my mother/ ARRRRRRGH
I would have loved to have a photo with Georgio to post just to annoy you; BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA
He'd probably stop by the house if you asked him nice in emial.
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