The oldest human footprints in Europe | Natural History Museum 

Your voice is excellent you should do voice acting in video games

Scott Walker Thanks Scott...I do sometimes!

+Piers Gibbon Hi. I enjoyed your video, but I didn't catch what time period the footprints were from. How long ago was it from?

Good job on the narrative Piers. I always enjoy hearing about our prehistoric ancestors.

Hi Piers Gibbon I can back you up on the ‘no hoax’ , I was lucky enough to be part of the Natural History Museum’s film crew who filmed the interviews and the action unfolding. A moment I will never forget! Great voice over by the way. :)

I ammmm frommmmmmm theeeeeee futttureeeee

@Jorge Mendez lol

@Jorge Mendez lol squared

@Jorge Mendez : Story time, again.

Greta is not going to be happy with this!

Actually Jingles, the New Mexican find is more impressive (important). We (the World) already knew that pre-Neander hominids lived in Doggerland/Great Britain, we (the World) had no proof that pre-Clovis people's existed in North America.

@@TheShootist pretty cool whut?

250,000 years not 20K@@TheShootist

Ha ha yeh that's typical bah!!

I got peeps from Norfolk England. Fascinating so glad to see new archeology finds.

Ha

Yep...

Im certain of it..everyday!

and then consider that no portion of the ocean is older than 200My everything earlier has been subducted into the crust. then consider that all the limestone and chalk and coal and other sequestered hydrocarbons (oil and natural gas and whatnot) were likely once everything from trees and other plants to animalcules to tiny single celled organisms.

Gaius Caerulius Verus Allectus Well put. Thank you.

Look what happened with seahenge

@@carmadme What happened with Sea henge?

They wont.

Thank you...it's me!

Good luck...

You poor thing.

David Bockman I think he said the surface was under water

Wet clay, dried out after the humans passed and got covered by sand, probably very soon (days?). He said it was a riverbed, so they probably walked on the wet clay on the inner side of a bend in the river.

Great find .. shared!

thanks mate !

The people who made the footprints were not our ancestors. There were other humans that went extinct that left Africa long before our ancestors did.

@@markc2643 ah, that makes sense. Thanks

If you're talking about the intro music, then it's the same as used in the following RU-vid video, but there's a lot more of it... - 'Inside the Milky Way Galaxy - National Geographic Universe Documentary' - dated 1 Apr 2021 (uploader 'Amazing Space'). I occasional attempt to find out the title and composer, but after many years, it continues to elude me. National Geographic produce different versions of their videos, with variations of the soundtrack, so it's specifically the version above, that has the same soundtrack. Oh, and the video is well worth watching...

@@kevinhaynes9091 thanks, Kevin.

Not exactly - in fact the sea level was similar to today, but it was before Britain became an island (after a huge glacial lake burst through and made the southern part of what's now the North Sea), so you could walk to what's now Europe. This was during an interglacial period, so the temperature was very similar to today. The ice sheets and glaciers had retreated temporarily at this time.

It might be a bit late now, but it's 𝘏𝘰𝘮𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘳 (Pioneer Man).

+John Phelps I once tried tinder dating. Met many fossils.

In today's Society you become an "Expert" and put forth your theory like it is the truth. Facts have become Irrelevant and immaterial.

Frank, I like the illustration of how Theory becomes fact. The media should present the basis of the calculations as you suggest, but then they would have to understand it to reach a conclusion. They aren't that bright and only are interested in "stirring the pot". In the end who really cares as how far we have evolved as far as a society is more important. There is definite room for improvement..

It was explained that the radio carbon dating if seeds was completed; found in the same layer of soil & debris.

@@joeclark818 Surprised to see a former Canadian Prime Minister here.

They indicate a range of dating methods at 3:40 - stratigraphy and plant remains together with radiocarbon dating

Show me

@@snbts24 they are located in Patten Maine.

@@kbates2271 Any Sasquatch prints?

Whereabouts Patrick...I'd love to go see them.im in cork

They were other earlier humans. Watch the video and find out.

These were our early relatives 𝘏𝘰𝘮𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘳 (Pioneer Man), the same genus as us, but a different species. It's definitely either 850,000 or 950,00 years ago!

"A darkness that's ALWAYS expanding........."

"A darkness that's ALWAYS expanding........."

In the video they mentioned Homo Anticessor as being the most likely candidate, although it is true that Neanderthal did exist at that time also en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_antecessor

its obviously not a shoe.

The environment back then wasn't similar at all to the modern beach. If there hadn't been significant changes, those footprints would never have been preserved. Back when they were made, the whole area was likely a tidal estuary.

Hi Sam, it is possible they were made by people from the Homo antecessor species, who were known to be present in other parts of Europe at the time. See our news article for more details: www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2014/feb/we-were-here-earliest-humans-leave-prints-on-norfolk-beach127907.html

Natural History Museum Great - Thanks!

+Sam Ford I'd say Piltdown Man.

+Sam Ford homo sapiens is a million years old.Black people arte the eldest folk on earth, and possess DNA that can still produce white children.Black folk predate Africa

If black people - and Homo Sapiens - originated in Africa, how can they pre-date it?

It's impossible to say for certain, but most speculation I've seen leans toward Homo antecessor.

Where can i take this item to looked at again...?.. it is a tool and you can see all hand/finger marks and prints.... the rock was black when found incrusted inside clay...... now changing colour. Im nervous the rock clay is detearating.

Funny!!

no..Guinness man..

I know this is a very old comment, but I wanted to add and/or clarify a few things. You bring up a very good point regarding the difference between "first" and "earliest found". Some researchers and especially journalists and science communicators have a tendency to conflate the two, or not properly convey the importance of the distinction. There is some amount of disagreement regarding what should and should not count as "human", but the most common standard I've seen in academic writing is that all members of the genus Homo are considered "human". Researchers use terms like "behaviorally modern" and "anatomically modern" to clarify more narrow definitions of "human". The last common ancestor of all Homo species lived about 2 million years ago, and our lineage diverged from that of chimpanzees (our closest living relatives) anywhere from 5 to 10 million years ago). So these ~800k year old hominid footprints (likely made by Homo antecessor) were definitely "human" by the most common academic definition, and though they retained many traits that we would consider primitive, they are certainly much closer to us than they are to any other ape. A final side note: the different "races" of modern humans, to the limited extent that conventional racialized groups match genetic realities, diverged from each other significantly later than 200k years ago and much less completely than that simple summary makes it sound. "Mitochondrial Eve", the most recent matrilineal ancestor of all living humans, is estimated to have lived about 155k years ago, and the primary period of Homo sapiens expansion out of Africa likely didn't occur until 50k-70k years ago. (Current scholarship holds that previous expansions out of Africa are mostly not ancestral to modern humans.) Additionally, admixture between designated racial groups has been continuous ever since (as it has likely always been between various groups of hominids both archaic and modern), to the extent that races as we usually think of them do not align easily with genetic realities. To sum up, human history is extraordinarily complicated and we're always discovering new things. My comment will likely be superseded by new information before long, but I hope it's helpful to someone in the meantime.

Try watching the video and learn something about human evolution

@@lenabreijer1311 Parroting is not learning. Lifelong parroting can be quite convenient but it not learning. Well, it is learning in a way. Learning to parrot it is. If you were smart enough, you would know from my comment that I watched the video. Whe ndid your Pope tell you that the Earth is not flat anymore? "Believing" is not knowing.

@@wilhelmmeyer89 obviously learning is not possible for you. So sad for you. "Pope" ? I am not sure what that has anything to do with science of evolution.

The Cromer Forest-bed Formation (the sediment in which the footprints were found) is essentially on its way to being turned to stone. I've jumped up and down on this surface and it barely makes an impression. The footprints also deform the sediments beneath, and so were made when the sediment was soft mud at least 850,000 years ago.

Can’t have the truth getting out to the public 🙄 they may revolt or most likely just keep watching tv and scarfing down McDonald’s….🤢🤮

Okay, so we're used to humans being just one species - us. However, in the past there were several different species of humans in the world. We're not talking about homo sapiens here, but Homo antecessor (the only known human species around in Europe at this time). Nearly a million years ago a huge river flowed out to see at Happisburgh - it's the estuary of the ancient River Thames (which after changed course because of ice sheets pushing it further south). Sediments built up on top of this layer (known as the Cromer Forest-bed Formation), and eventually formed the cliffs in North Norfolk. Now that they are eroding, these discoveries are coming to light.

Hi there, thanks for your question. While our species, Homo sapiens, evolved hundreds of thousands of years ago, older ancient human species such as Homo erectus can be found from around two million years ago. You can read about the evolution of humans here: www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/the-origin-of-our-species.html

@@NaturalHistoryMuseum Thank you for the enlightenment

Some very old footprints, perhaps a million years old, show a well crafted boot sewn up expertly.

You can edit your comments with the three dots to the right…

Yes.

@@drdavidm.g.waterhouse7790 Oh wow, bad news for them! ☹️

so noah's flood was 900 000 years ago?

If a tsunami hit the area immediately after the footprints were made, they would not have been preserved. The water would have made short work of them.