Researchers found over 600 fossilized footprints of large mammals dating back 778,000 years on the beach of Tarifa, Cádiz in Spain.
The research is the result of interdisciplinary work carried out by specialists from the universities of Huelva, Cantabria, Oviedo, Tübingen (Germany), and the Doñana EBD-CSIC biological station, and was conducted by the Center for Underwater Archaeology of Andalusia and a team of experts. The findings were published in the Journal of Palaeogeography under the article titled "Footprints of vertebrates from the early Pleistocene imprinted in Oligocene strata of the southernmost point of the Iberian Peninsula: paleogeographic implications."
The findings were presented in Cádiz at an event presided over by the regional minister for culture, Patricia del Pozo, accompanied by her deputy Macarena O'Neill, the provincial delegate for culture Tania Barcelona, and IAPH's director-general Juan José Primo, according to Sur in English.
"We are dealing with the first site found so far with footprints of this zoological group in continental Europe," said Del Pozo, who emphasized the "international importance" of the finding.
A survey carried out by the IAPH corroborated that the traces corresponded to a varied set of ichnites, the academic term for fossilized footprints.
The site contains 635 animal tracks from the Early Pleistocene geological period, providing key information about the presence of large mammals in the area and helping to reconstruct the ecosystems of the southern Iberian Peninsula from that time. The footprints include traces of artiodactyls, which are mammals with an even number of toes, such as giraffes, aurochs, and deer, as well as traces of proboscideans like elephants, mammoths, and mastodons, as reported by OK Diario.
Eloísa Bernáldez, head of the Palaeontology and Palaeobiology laboratory at the IAPH, detailed that the fossil footprints are impressed on a muddy stratum from the Oligocene, and after initial prospecting, specialists confirmed that the footprints belonged to mammals from the Early Pleistocene.
The site in Tarifa is the first in continental Europe to have footprints from large mammals of this zoological group and is also the first record of a transit area in the Iberian Peninsula, suggesting it may have served as a natural transit corridor for these animals. The footprints show traces in both directions of the southwest-northeast axis, suggesting that these animals moved along specific routes, providing insights into their behavior and habitat use.
The discovery is also the southernmost of its kind found in continental Europe and the third such site in the Mediterranean, with two previous examples in Italy. This points to an environment where natural connections between Europe and Africa were more accessible than today.
The footprints are located in a soft clay substrate that later hardened, making their structure more fragile than it appears. The analysis indicates that the landscape and climate during the Lower Pleistocene were very different from today, which would explain the presence of species now associated with Africa.
This article was written in collaboration with generative AI company Alchemiq