Mystery of “Footprints” in 1.3 Million Year Old Mexico Volcanic Rock

"You're really left with two possibilities. One is that they are really old hominids - shockingly old - or they're not footprints."

- Paul Renne, Ph.D., UC-Berkeley

Left: Human left foot placed next to what appears to be left footprint in volcanic rock, Puebla, Mexico. Right: Possible right footprint, showing toe impressions and ball and heel, first discovered in 2003. Images courtesy John Moores University, U.K. — **Above**: Human left foot placed next to what appears to be left footprint in volcanic rock, Puebla, Mexico. **Below**: Possible right footprint, showing toe impressions and ball and heel, first discovered in 2003. Images courtesy John Moores University, U.K.

December 8, 2005 Berkeley, California - This past summer on the 4th of July at the British Royal Society Summer Exhibition Program, geologist Silvia Gonzalez, Ph.D., from Liverpool's John Moores University, announced that what appear to be human footprints in volcanic rock near Puebla, Mexico, were 40,000 years old. Puebla is about 1.5 hours by car southeast of Mexico City. The date was determined from Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) of "some baked particles incorporated into the ash." Dr. Gonzales and her colleagues had first discovered the prints in 2003 and hypothesized that early hunters walked near a lake there across freshly deposited ash from volcanoes that are still active in the region. The ash mixed with rain and water which over time turned to rock.

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