Fossil human footprints found, according to reports in BBC News, ScienceNOW 26 Feb 2009 and Science vol. 323. p 1197, 27 February 2009. An international group of scientists has analysed a series of fossilised footprints found in Ileret, Kenya. They were found in two sedimentary layers dated at 1.51 to 1.53 million years ago. There were two sets of prints, one five metres deeper than the other, separated by sand, silt, and volcanic ash. The team dated the surrounding sediment by comparing it with well-known radioisotope-dated samples from the region, and concluded the two layers of prints were made at least 10,000 years apart. The prints had “a modern shape, with the big toe parallel to the other toes and a pronounced arch.” According to the BBC the prints belong to someone with the “height, weight, and walking style of modern humans” with evidence of “a heavy landing on the heel with weight transferred along the outer edge of the foot, progressing to the ball of the foot and lifting off with the toes.” The footprints have been classified as belonging to “Homo erectus” and the researchers concluded: “The Ileret prints show that by 1.5 Ma, hominins had evolved an essentially modern human foot function and style of bipedal locomotion.”
Editorial Comment: These footprints were clearly made by human feet, and if they had been found in rock given a younger date they would have been classified as Homo sapiens. They are only called Homo erectus because of the 1.5 Million year date, which is too old for H. sapiens in the evolutionary timetable. As such they are a good example of the old problem of circular reasoning for evolutionists – they use rocks to date fossils and then classify the fossils according to the already believed evolutionary timetable.
Furthermore, a quick walk on the beach sand should convince anyone that footprints can only been preserved and fossilised if they are rapidly buried. If the 5 metres of sediment between the two sets of prints really was laid down over 100,000 years then it was deposited at a rate of 0.05 mm per year. That is smaller than the size of a grain of sand. It is far easier to believe the lower footprints were rapidly buried by sediment/ash up to 5 meters thick (one day’s work for volcanic activity or floods) and then soon after, while that sediment was still consolidating, another person walked across it and then that layer was also rapidly buried and the rock layers then solidified. If you accept the 1.5 million years the footprints have now proved that feet have not evolved in all that time – a fact that really helps the creationist case. (Ref. anthropology, sedimentology, feet)
Evidence News 27 May 2009