Scientists were able to detect traces of prehistoric man

The trail was exposed on the island of Cyprus.

A team of researchers has discovered on Crete fossils age of 5.7 million years with distinct prints, human foot, reports The International Business Times. His finding, the authors wrote in the journal Proceedings of the Geologist Association.

By the mid-twentieth century in the scientific community confirmed the view of Africa as the ancestral homeland of modern man. The African centre of origin of the person is considered to be the area that is adjacent to the great Rift valley. It is on this continent at the end of the last century was the most ancient skeletal remains of people. For example, in 1974 in Ethiopia was discovered a complete skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis, one of our most ancient ancestors, his age about 3.8 million years.

The oldest representatives of the species Homo sapiens was the result of evolution 400-250 thousand years ago. Over time, Homo sapiens spread around the world, displacing existing in other regions the populations of Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis – a kind of early version of Homo sapiens.

According to the hypothesis, the genus Homo initially separated from Australopithecus or similar hominids about 2 million years there in Africa. Early Australopithecines sometimes include such ancient race of hominids as ardipithecus, they lived about 5.8-4.4 million years ago. Still it is believed that the ardipithecus is a direct ancestor of later hominids. We know that our ancestors began to walk on two legs, at least 2 million years before they began to use specially made tools.

However, found in the fossils trail of foot age 5.7 million adds arguments to skeptics of the theory of an African cradle of mankind. According to scientists, the imprint is very similar to the shape of the human foot that form the toes, especially the big toe corresponds to the size, location and shape of the human finger. In their words, “the impression is unmistakably similar to the human leg.”

If so, then it is possible that our ancestors could wander around southern Europe and East Africa. Experts believe that the footprints were left on the sandy shore or in the river Delta.

The age of the prints managed to date using the shell of unicellular organisms, foraminifera, discovered on the top and bottom of sedimentary rocks formed during the period when short, dried up Mediterranean sea – 5.6 million years ago.

The age of the finds corresponds to the geological period of late Miocene. At that time the Sahara desert was not there, and savannahs, covered with grasses that stretched from North Africa to the Eastern Mediterranean. In addition, Crete had not yet separated from the mainland. Thus, it is easy to assume that early hominids could be in the South-East of Europe, and in Africa, and was able to leave my footprints on the shores of the Mediterranean, which will become part of the island of Crete.

paradox