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Article: Did Eve make footprints in the sand 117,000 years ago?
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- August 15, 1997
CopyrightCopyright 1997 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Washington (Reuters) - A set of 117,000-year-old footprints
found in South Africa is possible evidence of a woman who could be
the common ancestor of all modern humans, the fossils' discoverers
said yesterday.
Made by bare feet in wet sand after a rainstorm, the prints are
an important clue to a period with a scarce fossil record: 100,000
to 300,000 years ago, when modern humans emerged.
"These were made by a person who looked anatomically just like
us," said Lee Berger, a palaeoanthropologist who announced the
discovery at a news conference at the National Geographic Society
in Washington, where a fibreglass cast of the footprints was
displayed.
Mr Berger and David Roberts, a South African ...