300,000-year-old footprints reveal extinct humans went on a lakeside family outing among giant elephants and rhinos

In a forest clearing of birch and pine bushes in what’s in the present day central Europe, herds of long-extinct beasts as soon as gathered to drink on the shores of an historic lake. Now, researchers have confirmed that early human family and their youngsters foraged and bathed amongst them.

Three uncommon, 300,000-year-old footprints from a Decrease Paleolithic (round 3 million to 300,000 years in the past) fossil website in northwestern Germany reveal that Homo heidelbergensis, an extinct species of human that existed from about 700,000 to 200,000 years in the past (opens in new tab), co-existed with prehistoric elephants and rhinos, whose footprints have been additionally discovered on the website. Whereas a 2018 examine within the journal Scientific Experiences (opens in new tab) documented an identical neighborly relationship between early people and prehistoric beasts in Ethiopia from 700,000 years in the past, that is the primary footprint proof of H. heidelbergensis from Germany and solely the fourth report of the species’ footprints worldwide.