Cool! :)
Posted on 02/17/2011 7:26:28 AM PST by Silentgypsy
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/2000-Year-Old-Roman-Childs-Footprints-Discovered-By-Archaeologists-In-North-Yorkshire/Article/201102315931164?f=rss
Exclusive: Roman Child’s Footprints Found
4:38pm UK, Tuesday February 15, 2011
Gerard Tubb, north of England correspondent
Two thousand-year-old footprints left by a Roman child playing by the side of a road have been found in North Yorkshire.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.sky.com ...
http://news.sky.com/sky-news/content/StaticFile/jpg/2011/Feb/Week3/15931208.jpg
Roman child’s footprint. Photo: Northern Archaeological Associates
Archaeologists made the remarkable discovery while excavating a muddy area of a former Roman settlement on the A1 near Leeming.
Helen Maclean of archaeology firm AECOM described the find as very rare.
“I’m not aware of many other footprints being found, everybody was quite amazed by it,” she said.
The child was probably running through the mud, jumping in puddles or possibly just trying to avoid getting their feet wet— Helen Maclean, Archeologist
Photographs show a right footprint clearly visible in soft ground followed by two left prints - suggesting that the boy or girl who made them was hopping or skipping.
The perfectly-preserved footprints were uncovered in 2010 during a dig at Healam Bridge, but photographs have only now been released after Sky News heard of their existence.
http://news.sky.com/sky-news/content/StaticFile/jpg/2011/Feb/Week3/15931240.jpg
Roman child’s footprints uncovered at A1 road widening. Photo: Northern Archaeological Associates
The site was excavated as part of a £318m Highways Agency scheme to upgrade part of the A1 to a three-lane motorway.
The area where the child had been playing was close to a stream where archaeologists believe the Romans struggled to keep their feet dry.
Experts found evidence of repeated attempts to make the area less muddy, with stones and plant material spread on the soft ground.
“It was quite close to where the stream probably ran”, said Ms Maclean.
“The child was probably running through the mud, jumping in puddles or possibly just trying to avoid getting its feet wet.”
http://news.sky.com/sky-news/content/StaticFile/jpg/2011/Feb/Week3/15931248.jpg
Artist’s impression of Healam Bridge Roman fort
The dig was close to an imperial fort which served as a frontier outpost for the famous Ninth Legion which took part in the Roman invasion of Britain in AD43.
The Highways Agency released photographs and drawings of an industrial complex found on the site with a water powered flour mill used to grind grain and produce food for the nearby Roman garrison.
Archaeologists were unable to preserve the footprints and the photographs are the only evidence that remains of the child’s brief skip through the Yorkshire mud.
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Cool! :)
Ok, it’s sort of cool, but is it significant?
I mean, we do know there were people in England 2000 years ago, right? And the foot print is like any foot print, right? It doesn’t indicate some sort of crazy evolution in the past 2000 years?
It’s a foot print. I can find lots of them that look just like it, but are a little more recent.
Why didn’t the cut out the prints and preserve them with liquid plastic? Plaster casts would have been nice, maybe.
Careless kid! Probably too late to discipline him...
Scientists have now proven that children had feet during Roman times.
That’s about what I was thinking...But I just love the stories they attach to these finds....
That’s a pretty deep print...there should be many more. Kid was wearing shoes?? I don’t see any evidence of squishy toes.
Exactly right. They seem to invent the most insane stuff. a reporter in search of some human interest.
how do they even know the child was roman? Or even a child and not a smallish woman? Ah well.
I think we'll need Stimulus Funding Grants to research that theory a bit more thoroughly. You are completely ignoring the fact that the footprint may have been that of a minority child who was forced to attend an inferior Roman school, before succumbing at too early an age to Global Warming, or second-hand smoke.
I'll take up your idea at the next Sharia Council Meeting, Inshallah.
Read the dissertation...It’s amusing...thinks they were hopping or skipping because symmetry is messed up......Looks like huge strides....
Quite right...My daughter is 5’2”...size 5 shoe. My grandson’s feet were that big when he was 8.
What?? No dog prints??
This was found about 10 feet away, but the mud at this location was much, much, much older.
[/jk}
Hmmmmm....looks like a size 8 redwing workboot to me...:o)
That soil looks soft muddy an wet... Not like a clay that preserved the footprint.
hhhahhh!!! good one.. LOL..
I knew something was missing.
You have set me up the bomb lol
Of course they do not know if the child was “playing” or not. The child could have been a slave or a wife for all they know.
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