Abundant fossil evidence points to humanity’s homeland as a place in Africa, where Homo sapiens first split from earlier species around 300,000 years ago. But it’s not just the bones that tell this story; tools, artwork, food, and other traces also help fill in the gaps in how the ancestors of modern humans lived and spread around the world.oldest human footprint
Some time ago, an international team of scientists identified the oldest known fossil footprints of a member of our species. The team calculated the dates of seven ‘ichnosites’ (sites of ancient human traces) off the Cape southern coast of South Africa and found that they ranged from 71,000 to 153,000 years old. The last area holds the title of the oldest known Homo sapiens footprints in the world.
This suggests that the shores of the Cape of Good Hope were a comfortable place for humans for tens of thousands of years, even as their northern neighbors began to migrate to other areas. Other footprint evidence suggests that modern humans reached the Arabian peninsula about 120,000 years ago and North America about 22,000 years ago.Researchers in the new study were able to date South African footprints using a method known as optically stimulated luminescence. Essentially, scientists take quartz grains and other minerals from a sample and expose them to ionizing radiation. After this process, the way the particles glow reveals when they last saw sunlight, or in other words, how long they had been buried. The team thinks that more permits may be found in the area.
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