The oldest human footprints in North Africa and the southern Mediterranean have been discovered in Larache by an international research team led by the Université Bretagne Sud (UBS – University of Southern Brittany) in France, in partnership with Moroccan, German, and Spanish universities.

Discovered on a rocky beach in Larache, these Homo sapiens footprints, some 100,000 years old, were left by at least 5 individuals (children, adolescents, and adults), according to a UBS press release.

“These footprints (85 in all) are mainly oriented towards the sea and give a striking image of what the search for marine resources by these Homo sapiens, who lived on or along the Larachoise coast around 100,000 years ago, could probably have been,” notes the same source.

The discovery, made by an international team of Moroccan, French, and Spanish scientists led by Mouncef Sedrati (teacher-researcher and director of the Geo-Ocean Laboratory at the UBS), took place during a field measurement mission in July 2022, as part
of a scientific research project into the origin and dynamics of the boulders that litter the southern coastline of the town of Larache in north-west Morocco.

“These imprints were left on the seaward side of a sandbar that made up the upper part of the beach around 100,000 years ago. They were then rapidly preserved, thanks to being covered by fine sediments, during a phase of low swell conditions, combined with a period of low tidal range,” said Sedrati, quoted in the press release.

The Larache footprint site is one of the largest and best-preserved Upper Pleistocene sites in the world, and the only one documented in North Africa and the southern Mediterranean, according to Sedarti.

Source: Agency Morocaine De Presse