Newly Discovered Footprints in Portugal Rewrite Neanderthal History in Europe

The shores change, but certain secrets remain frozen underfoot. Where the ocean slowly nibbles away at the cliffs, an unexpected discovery disturbs the silence of the hardened sand. Neanderthal footprints, left tens of millennia ago, have resurfaced in the wind of Portugal. These traces, as fleeting as they are priceless, redraw the contours of a human presence confined for too long inland.

Portugal reveals an exceptional paleontological site

North of Monte Clérigo beach, the petrified layers of sand of the Vicentine coast have recently provided valuable testimony. An international team led by Carlos Neto de Carvalho, geologist at the University of Lisbon, unearthed a fossil surface containing 26 human footprints organized into several distinct tracks. These traces date back 78,000 years, according to luminescence analyzes carried out on eolianite deposits, consolidated marine sands characteristic of this portion of coastline.

Further south, at Praia do Telheiro, a single well-preserved footprint, dated 82,000 years old, completes this discovery. The two sites offer a rare insight into the behavior of Neanderthals on the Atlantic coast, an area that has so far been poorly documented. According to the article published in the journal Scientific Reports by Neto de Carvalho and his colleagues, the fossil dunes of the Algarve constitute an exceptional terrain for the preservation of footprints, in particular because of the steep slopes and episodes of rapid silting which have frozen these moments of life.

© Scientific Reports

Hominid footprints have been discovered in Pleistocene coastal deposits.

What Neanderthal footprints tell about a moment in life

Some prints measure barely 11 centimeters. Others, much larger, show a stable and powerful step. An adult, a child, a toddler. All crossed together a steep slope formed by a coastal dune, probably wet, which remembered the inclination of the body, the imbalances of the foot, fatigue or speed. One rises slowly. Another slips on the way down. A few meters away, the hooves of a large deer cross their path. Nothing allows us to decide between hunting or simple proximity, but the overlapping of the traces suggests an interaction.

The detailed study of the prints makes it possible to estimate the size of the individuals. A man of around 1.70 meters, a child of 7 to 9 years old, and even a toddler under two years old, still unable to dig the arch of the foot. Some steps show a pause or slowdown, perhaps due to carrying a weight, a limp, or a simple change in trajectory. The research team used 3D models and photogrammetry techniques to analyze the depth, orientation and sequence of steps, revealing a scene that was as precise as it was ephemeral. Unlike tools or bones, these traces tell the story of an experienced event, in real time.

A mastery of the coast much older than we thought

These footprints upset the long-fixed image of Neanderthals. Based on an analysis of ecological networks of coastal sites on the Iberian Peninsula, the authors demonstrate that Neanderthals actively exploited coastal resources. The main game consisted of deer, horses and hares, but their diet also included marine elements, such as crustaceans or coastal fish. This dietary diversification reflects a capacity for fine adaptation to varied environments, and contradicts the idea of ​​a Neanderthal confined to continental forests.

The choice of dunes as a place of passage is not insignificant. Their steep topography offered terrain conducive to organized travel, but also to ambush hunting. Some trails suggest a planned route, others a winding progression to better control the slope. The children, whose traces are rarely preserved elsewhere, bear witness to the intergenerational nature of these expeditions.

Neanderthals were not content with occasional passages on the coast. His presence there responded to a stable and thoughtful logic. Long before Homo sapiens, it occupied these Atlantic coasts strategically. As SciTechDaily points out, this discovery requires us to review the ecological niche attributed to our extinct cousins. It sheds light, in fact, on a more adaptable way of life than previously thought.