One hell of an impressionDuring a Greek holiday in 2002, a Polish paleontologist found what he thinks are the oldest human-like footprints in the world. Thus began a vicious fight over a discovery that raises new questions about our evolution.By Emily Chung February 23, 2018
https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/human-footprints-greece“I always carry — even on vacation — a hammer, a camera and a GPS,†he said.
So when he spotted an odd imprint in a rock along the beach, he was ready.
Gierlinski has studied dinosaur tracks and recognized the indentation as a footprint. And there were others. It was around noon, and the sunlight was too harsh to enable him to see the full details of the impressions — but he could immediately tell that they weren’t dinosaur tracks. He took a number of photographs of the imprints (including one with Piechik sitting on the rock). And, crucially, he captured the GPS co-ordinates, so he could find the place again.
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He eventually brought in other experts from Poland, as well as from Sweden, Greece, the U.S. and England, to help him analyze the footprints and the sediments surrounding them. Together, they determined the tracks were left by ancient human relatives 5.6 million years ago. That would make them the oldest human-like footprints in the world — two million years older, in fact, than the oldest found in Africa, long considered the “cradle of humankind.â€
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