300,000-year-old stone tools at one site in the Nefud probably mark the presence of an early wave of hominins, probably Homo erectus. Ars may earn compensation on sales from links on this site. At an ancient lake deposit dubbed ‘Alathar’ (meaning “the trace” in Arabic) by the team, hundreds of human and animal footprints were discovered embedded in the surface, having been exposed following the erosion of overlying sediments. Al Athar Saudi Trading Co. Ltd. (Al Athar), Saudi Arabia - Company Information. There’s also no trace of anyone else in the region at that time (so far), so our species looks more likely. Retracing the first human steps out of Saudi Arabia: Scientists use footprints to recreate 120,000-year-old comfort break at prehistoric lake 18 September 2020 Scientists have pieced together the movements of a small group of early humans as they journeyed out of Africa and into the Arabian Peninsula for the first time – more than 120,000 years ago. (If you’re an ichnology enthusiast, it’s worth noting that experiments in a mudflat show that human footprints lose their fine details within about two days and become totally unrecognizable in four.). Issam Ahmed, Agence France-Presse Posted at Sep 17 07:38 AM. The footprints described in the new study were discovered during a recent survey of the Nefud Desert in Saudi Arabia. The silica fossils of single-celled algae in the footprint layer suggest that when the small group of people visited, the lake was in the process of drying up as the climate shifted. Back then, Alathar was a shallow lake in a low spot between dunes. 'Blood amber' may be a portal into dinosaur times, but the fossils are an ethical minefield for palaeontologists. "Footprints are a unique form of fossil evidence in that they provide snapshots in time, typically representing a few hours or days, a resolution we tend not [to] get from other records," he added. We argue that the footprints, dated to the last interglacial and therefore contemporaneous with an early H. sapiens out-of-Africa dispersal ( Fig. Fossil and archeological records show that these conditions aided human migration from Africa to the Levant, researchers said. "It is only after the last interglacial [period] with the return of cooler conditions that we have definitive evidence for Neanderthals moving into the region," Stewart said. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated 1/1/20) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated 1/1/20) and Ars Technica Addendum (effective 8/21/2018). Elephant (left) and camel (right) trackways were discovered. Head Office. 1B), a formidable barrier to overland movement. That was a better option then than it sounds now. They left behind at least seven footprints in the mud, and today those tracks are the oldest known evidence of our species’ presence in Arabia. Photo by Badar ZAHRANI/AFP via Getty Images The oldest human footprints in the Arabian Peninsula have been discovered on an ancient lakebed deep in Saudi Arabia's Nefud Desert, according to research released Friday. This list may not reflect recent changes . “It appears that Alathar Lake was only briefly visited by humans,” wrote Stewart and his colleagues. Al-Hassa is the largest oasis in the world, being approximately 20,000 hectares in size, as well as being one of the largest and oldest agriculatural centres in Saudi Arabia. Paleoanthropologists are still debating exactly why you’ve decided to do such a thing, and you almost certainly don’t have a destination in mind, but for now we’ll take it for granted that you just want to take a really, really long walk. Researchers discovered hundreds of fossilized footprints, which were exposed by sediment erosion, during a survey of an ancient lake in Saudi Arabia's Nefud Desert. 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