Oldest human footprint ever discovered: 300,000-year-old prints of extinct ‘Heidelberg people’ are found perfectly preserved in Germany

Scientists believe they have discovered the earliest human footprints – tracks left by a family of extinct humans 300,000 years ago. The perfectly preserved prints of a small family of ‘Heidelberg people,’ a species of human long since extinct, were uncovered in Germany. This subspecies of archaic humans, formally known as Homo heidelbergensis, were the first to build homes and hunt large animals but disappeared from the Earth about 28,000 years ago – and experts say it was because of climate change. The traces were discovered in the Paleolithic site complex of Schöningen in Lower Saxony, along with ancient animal imprints, including the first evidence of elephants in the region.