These are the first early human tracks to have been discovered in North Africa and the Southern Mediterranean. The arch of the indentations, rounded heels and the marks of short toes confirmed that they were tracks from Homo sapiens or modern humans like us. The preceding Middle to Late Pleistocene, encompassing the periods from 770,000 to 120,000 years ago, is broadly believed to be the age when ancient humans – separate from modern humans – roamed the earth. But footprints also give scientists an estimated timeframe to work out when humans started branching out and moving across the globe. For years, researchers held that modern humans first arrived in Alaska and spread through North America about 13,000 to 16,000 years ago after the last Ice Age.
