Title :

A Late Pleistocene hominin footprint site on the North African coast of Morocco

Author(s) :

Sedrati, Mouncef [Auteur]
Laboratoire d’Océanologie et de Géosciences (LOG) - UMR 8187 [LOG]
Morales, Juan [Auteur]
Duveau, Jérémy [Auteur]
Histoire naturelle de l'Homme préhistorique [HNHP]
M’rini, Abdelmounim El [Auteur]
Mayoral, Eduardo [Auteur]
Universidad de Huelva
Díaz-Martínez, Ignacio [Auteur]
Universidad de Cantabria [Santander] = University of Cantabria [Spain] = Université de Cantabrie [Espagne] [UC / UniCan]
Bulot, Glen [Auteur]
Geo-Ocean [GEO-OCEAN]
Sedrati, Anass [Auteur]
Le Gall, Romain [Auteur]
Geo-Ocean [GEO-OCEAN]
Santos, Ana [Auteur]
Universidad de Oviedo = University of Oviedo
Rivera-Silva, Jorge [Auteur]
Universidad de Sevilla = University of Seville
Anthony, Edward [Auteur]
Centre Européen de Recherche et d'Enseignement des Géosciences de l'Environnement [CEREGE]

Journal title :

Scientific Reports

Pages :

1962

Publisher :

Nature Publishing Group

Publication date :

2024-01-23

ISSN :

2045-2322

English keyword(s) :

Footprints
Homo sapiens
North Africa
Late Pleistocene
paleobiology

HAL domain(s) :

Planète et Univers [physics]/Sciences de la Terre/Paléontologie
Planète et Univers [physics]/Sciences de la Terre/Géologie appliquée
Sciences de l'Homme et Société/Anthropologie biologique

English abstract : [en]

Abstract Footprints represent a relevant vestige providing direct information on the biology, locomotion, and behaviour of the individuals who left them. However, the spatiotemporal distribution of hominin footprints is ...
Show more >Abstract Footprints represent a relevant vestige providing direct information on the biology, locomotion, and behaviour of the individuals who left them. However, the spatiotemporal distribution of hominin footprints is heterogeneous, particularly in North Africa, where no footprint sites were known before the Holocene. This region is important in the evolution of hominins. It notably includes the earliest currently known Homo sapiens (Jebel Irhoud) and the oldest and richest African Middle Stone Age hominin sites. In this fragmented ichnological record, we report the discovery of 85 human footprints on a Late Pleistocene now indurated beach surface of about 2800 m 2 at Larache (Northwest coast of Morocco). The wide range of sizes of the footprints suggests that several individuals from different age groups made the tracks while moving landward and seaward across a semi-dissipative bar-trough sandy beach foreshore. A geological investigation and an optically stimulated luminescence dating of a rock sample extracted from the tracksite places this hominin footprint surface at 90.3 ± 7.6 ka (MIS 5, Late Pleistocene). The Larache footprints are, therefore, the oldest attributed to Homo sapiens in Northern Africa and the Southern Mediterranean.Show less >

Language :

Anglais

Popular science :

Non

ANR Project :

Interdisciplinary Graduate School for the Blue planet

Collections :

• Laboratoire d'Océanologie et de Géosciences (LOG) - UMR 8187

Source :

Harvested from HAL