Egypt discovers what may be oldest human footprint

[Richard]

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian archaeologists have found what they said could be the oldest human footprint in history in the country's western desert, the Arab country's antiquities' chief said on Monday.

"This could go back about two million years," said Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities. "It could be the most important discovery in Egypt," he told Reuters.

Archaeologists found the footprint, imprinted on mud and then hardened into rock, while exploring a prehistoric site in Siwa, a desert oasis.

Scientists are using carbon tests on plants found in the rock to determine its exact age, Hawass said.

Khaled Saad, the director of prehistory at the council, said that based on the age of the rock where the footprint was found, it could date back even further than the renowned 3-million year-old fossil Lucy, the partial skeleton of an ape-man, found in Ethiopia in 1974.

Most archaeological interest in Egypt is focused on the time of the pharaohs.

Previously, the earliest human archaeological evidence from Egypt dated back around 200,000 years, Saad said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNe...0020070820

[AndrewX]

Hi Rick, 

Something I'd like to point out regarding the issue of the oldest remnants of man...

I noticed that up until about twenty years ago the Egyptians were claiming that they had the oldest remnants known of man and that they dated back around 20-30,000 years.  Then someone discovered Australian Aboriginal remnants in Mid Australia that dated back 60,000years, and it was then announced to be the oldest remnants known of man. 

Now, in recent times, I am seeing the Egyptians claiming to have 200,000 and 300,000 year old remnants of man.  Shortly prior to this they were claiming to have 100,000 year old proof of man, even though there was NEVER an announcement of such findings after the 60,000 year old Aboriginal findings.

I don't hold much faith in any Egyptian claims since then.  They seem to have an attitude that their land is the oldest on Earth, and everyone else can love it or lump it.  Logic alone tells me that this COULD NOT be the case given the barreness of their land.  Primative Man could NOT have survived in such harsh dessert enviroments in the days when he had very limited knowledge about farming or hunting, which would have been the case when the worlds population was in the few hundreds or thousands.  To have assured his existance in future, man would have HAD to have originiated in a far more forgiving and vegatative abundant enviroment than any dessert could ever be.  This is simple logic.  Even the depiction of the Garden of Eden is NOT that of a dessert. 

I think in all honesty that the Pyramids have gotten to their heads.:P 

I DO NOT believe that the oldest man lived anywhere near Egypt for obvious and simple reasons, and I make no apology if that upsets their ego.  Their ego is not my concern, only the truth is.

[GertrudaRose]

I don't believe anything that comes out of the mouth of Zahi Hawass.  Everyone has to believe his official lines about Egypt's antiquities & wonders and he allows no one else to examine them or to contest his theories.  His official history leaves much to be desired and has plenty of holes.  (My personal favorite is that the pyramids are tombs for the pharaohs when no pharaoh's mummy has ever been discovered in a pyramid but have all been found in the Valley of the Kings.)

[DreamTime]

I concur. I do not like, or believe, anything that Egyptian lizard has to say. You can just tell when he is lying or stretching the truth (at least I can).

Andrew, while I do not know where the oldest man came from (and frankly, I don't care as everywhere is good), I do know that there was a time in ancient history when Egypt was lush and green. It wasn't always a desert, so ancient man could have survived there.
 

[Richard]

Andrew, I see the claim as possible. Egypt wasn’t always a desert. It was once lush green land of staggering beauty. It’s also where the Nibiruans first splashed down. However they aren’t the oldest footprints that I’ve heard about. Michael Cremo found footprints 3.7 million years old in 1979 at Laetoli, Tanzania.

[AndrewX]

I agree with your points about Zahi Wahass - he strikes more a used car salesman than a historian.

DT, sorry if I gave you or anyone the impression that I was supporting any other race of beings on this issue, that was not my intention. I just used the Aborigines as an example, I have no doubt that there are comparable or older specimens of mankind existing on many other old continents on Earth. One in particular I should have mentioned before was Africa. Rick did anyway.

I was unaware of Micheal Cremo's discovery in Tanzania, but I would be first to agree that if the oldest evidence of 'man's existence on earth' were to be found anywhere, I'd place my money on Africa.

Knowing what I know about Cremo and the manner in which he presents himself, I would tend to believe his findings that you mention there Rick.  He seems too humble a man to lie about anything.

On the issue of Egypt once being a green paradise, sure, there is solid evidence to prove that. But it would have been alot longer ago than the original Egyptian claims of the oldest signs of man being 5,000 - 20,000 years ago; which was their claim till only 20years ago... and dating technologies have not changed much since then. My point is that they seem to change their minds on the issue depending on what other countries are finding. I think the only reason they haven't as yet come out to claim they've found remnents dating back well over 4million years is because Cremo is not mainstream enough to bother them.  If and when he does become so, or if others who are more mainstream claim similar, watch how fast and miracoulasly the Egyptians will come forth and start talking about the remnents that were discovered 100m to the left of the toilet cubicles on the West side of the Sphinx as being 10 million years old. LOLOL

They're the Fast Eddy's of the historical realm, they're the men with a nod and a wink.  So long as they do not allow other bodies or authorites to examine their findings I will have no option other than to doubt anything and everything they claim.

[Richard]

I agree about Michael Cremo. I’ve read his articles for years and I think he is a stand up guy. I would bank on any of his research. You’re right about him not being mainstream and that’s why Egypt thinks 2 million years is the oldest. Here’s what they said about it on Cremo's site.

Another case in which rigid commitment to an evolutionary consensus has prevented recognition of possible evidence for extreme human antiquity may be found in the Laetoli footprints, discovered by Mary Leakey in Tanzania in 1979. The prints occurred in layers of solidified volcanic ash 3.7 million years old . Leakey herself (1979:453) said the prints were exactly like anatomically modern human footprints, a judgement shared by other physical anthropologists (Tuttle 1981:91, 1987:517). Tim White said, “Make no mistake about it. They are like modern human footprints” (Johanson and Edey 1981:250).

http://www.mcremo.com/paleolithic.html

[William]

  How can this be?  The world is only 6-thousand years old!  ;)

[Richard]

A lot of Christians now know that the word days was translated wrong in Genesis. It’s supposed to say God created the world in 6 periods and not 6 days. So they know the world is more than 6 thousand years old. :) 

[William]

 You will find many for and against for this.....  But fun to think about.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation...osaurs.asp

Human footprints lie alongside thousands of dinosaur prints on a Turkmenian plateau, a Russian newspaper has reported.

Journalist Alexander Bushev reported in the 31 January 1995 edition of Komsomolskaya Pravda (one of the most popular newspapers of the former USSR) that he had journeyed to the plateau near the village of Khodga-Pil in Turkmenistan, and had seen the fossilized prints of dinosaurs and humans together.

According to evolutionary theory, dinosaurs had become extinct long before humans first appeared on earth.

Bushev said that every metre of the half-kilometre-wide rock surface is covered by three-toed footprints ‘made by giant dinosaurs making their morning or evening promenade along the ancient sea-shore’. The Turkmenian plateau contains more than 3,000 footprints.

Bushev said that Turkmenian scientist Kurban Amanniyazov considers this Jurassic plateau to be at least 200 million years old.

‘But the most mysterious fact’, Bushev added, ‘is that among the footprints of dinosaurs, footprints of bare human feet were found!’ He suggested that, because ‘we know’ that humans appeared much later than dinosaurs, there was an extraterrestrial ‘who walked in his swimming suit along the sea-side’.

This report about dinosaur and human footprints on Kughitang-Tau Plateau is not the first. The news was reported to readers of the English version of Moscow News in 1983 (No. 24, p. 10). This was during a period when communists strictly controlled the ideological aspect of all publications, so an article of that kind could be published only with official commentary from a representative of official State science.