2014 – Scientists announce that the Happisburgh footprints in Norfolk, England, date back to more than 800,000 years ago, making them the oldest known hominid footprints outside Africa. The Happisburgh footprints were a set of fossilized hominid footprints that date to the end of the Early Pleistocene, around 850–950,000 years ago. They were discovered in May 2013 in a newly uncovered sediment layer of the Cromer Forest Bed on a beach at Happisburgh in Norfolk, England, and carefully photographed in 3D before being destroyed by the tide shortly afterwards. Research results on the footprints were announced on 7 February 2014, identifying them as the oldest known hominid footprints outside Africa. Before the Happisburgh discovery, the oldest known footprints in Europe were the Ciampate del Diavolo tracks found at the Roccamonfina volcano in Italy, dated to around 350,000 years ago. Approximately fifty footprints were found in an area measuring nearly 430 sq. feet. Twelve were largely complete, and two showed details of toes. The footprints of approximately five individuals have been identified, including adults and children. The footprints measured between 5.5 and 10.2 inches, thought to equate to heights between 2 feet 11 inches and 5 feet 7 inches. It is believed that the individuals who made them were from the species
Homo antecessor, known to have lived in the Atapuerca Mountains of Spain around 800,000 years ago. No hominin fossils have been found at Happisburgh. Analysis shows that the group of perhaps five individuals was walking in a southerly direction (upstream) along mudflats in the estuary of an early path of the River Thames that flowed into the sea farther north than it did when south-east Britain was joined to the European continent. Archaeologists have speculated that the group was searching the mudflats for seafood such as lugworms, shellfish, crabs, and seaweed. Magnetic signatures within the sedimentary deposits indicate they were laid down between the two most recent geomagnetic reversals – the Brunhes–Matuyama reversal around 780,000 years ago and the Jaramillo reversal around 950,000 to 1 million years ago. The evidence of fossil flora and fauna using indicators such as the fossilized teeth of voles, which provide very accurate dating evidence, pushes the lower limit back to at least 840,000 years ago. At the time the Happisburgh hominins lived, a land bridge existed between Britain and France before the formation of the English Channel about 450,000 years ago.
