- Footprints belong to six or seven individuals, including at least one child
- 400 footprints were originally discovered in 1965. They were thought to belong to a man, woman and child and dated to 10,000 to 15,000 years old
- Now radiocarbon dating of two cave bear fossils suggests they are older
- Footprints are one of oldest to be described in a peer-reviewed journal
Some of Europe’s oldest human footprints have been discovered by researchers in Romania’s Ciur-Izbuc Cave.
The 400 footprints were originally unearthed in the Carpathian Mountains in 1965. At the time, they were thought to belong to a man, woman and child and dated to 10,000 to 15,000 years old.
But now radiocarbon measurements of two cave bear fossils unearthed just below the footprints suggests that these early humans left their impressions 36,500 years ago.
