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Reconstituted scenario of Monte Clérigo tracksite, generated by AI tools following the guidance, and final artworks of J.M. Galán (ChatGPT-4 was used to select the prompts, at https://openai.com/index/gpt-4/; Image Generator Pro to generate various versions, at https://imagegeneratorpro.com; DALL-E3 for the nuances and quality of the image, at https://openai.com/index/dall-e-3/; Photoshop 26.4.1 (www.adobe.com) and digital pencil of Procreate for iPad version 5.3.14, at https://apps.apple.com/us/app/procreate/id425073498, for drawing over the selected image version).
According to mainstream geological dating techniques, these footprints were made tens of thousands of years before the supposed biblical date of creation (around 6,000 to 10,000 years ago, depending on interpretation). For creationists who insist that all of Earth’s history must be crammed into a few millennia, these kinds of discoveries are profoundly inconvenient. Worse still, the clarity of the evidence — physical impressions in sediment, dated using well-established methods like optically stimulated luminescence — makes them difficult to hand-wave away.
Faced with such a challenge, creationists will likely fall back on a familiar toolkit of denial strategies. Some will try to cast doubt on the dating methods, resorting to pseudoscientific critiques of OSL or claiming unknown “contamination” skewed the results. Others may assert that the footprints were made after Noah’s Flood — an idea that stretches credulity beyond breaking point given the age and geological context. And, of course, some will simply ignore the evidence altogether, pretending it doesn’t exist or insisting that Neanderthals were just humans who lived in “post-Babel dispersion” times, despite the overwhelming fossil, genetic, and archaeological data to the contrary.
The discovery has been reported recently in the journal Scientific Reports by a team of researchers which includes experts from the Gibraltar National Museum and the University of Lisbon, Portugal.
What is OSL Dating? Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating is a scientific method used to determine the last time sediment grains (typically quartz or feldspar) were exposed to sunlight.Their findings are described in an official Gibraltar Government press release.
When minerals are buried, they begin to accumulate energy from natural radiation in the surrounding soil. This energy is stored in the crystal lattice of the grains. If the sediment is later exposed to light (for example, when it’s brought to the surface), the stored energy is released as light — or luminescence.
In the lab, scientists expose these mineral grains to light in a controlled environment and measure the luminescence emitted. This tells them how long it has been since the grains were last exposed to sunlight — effectively dating the time the sediment was buried.
Why it Matters
- Ideal for dating footprints, tools, or fossils buried in sand or silt
- Works well in the range of ~100 to ~100,000 years ago
- Does not rely on organic material (unlike radiocarbon dating)
- Widely used in archaeology and palaeoanthropology
In the case of the Neanderthal footprints in Portugal, OSL dating revealed that the sands preserving the tracks were last exposed to light around 78,000 years ago — providing a reliable minimum age for when the individuals walked there.
What is the mathematical formula for calculating the age?
The age in Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating is calculated using the following formula:
\(\text{Age} = \frac{D_e}{D_r}\) Where:
- \(D_e\) = Equivalent dose (in grays, Gy): the total amount of radiation absorbed by the mineral grains since their last exposure to sunlight or heat.
- \(D_r\) = Dose rate (in grays per year, Gy/yr): the annual amount of radiation the grains receive from surrounding sediments and cosmic rays.
What These Mean in Practice:
- Equivalent Dose (De) is measured in the lab by stimulating the mineral grains with light and quantifying the luminescence emitted, which correlates with the stored radiation energy.
- Dose Rate (Dr) is estimated by analysing the concentration of radioactive isotopes (e.g., uranium, thorium, potassium) in the surrounding sediments, plus contributions from cosmic rays and internal sources.
Example:
If a sample has:
- \(D_e = 156 \, \text{Gy}\)
- \(D_r = 2.0 \, \text{Gy/ka}\, \text{(Gy per thousand years)}\)
Then:
\(\text{Age} = \frac{156}{2.0} = 78 \, \text{ka (thousand years)}\)
Gibraltar National Museum scientists participate in a major new international study
Why are a significant number of sites where Neanderthal remains have been found located along the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of the Iberian Peninsula?
An international study coordinated by Carlos Neto de Carvalho, a palaeontologist working at IDL-University of Lisbon and scientific co-ordinator of the Naturtejo UNESCO Global Geopark, has revealed the first hominin footprints attributed to Neanderthals in Portugal, marking a significant advance in the understanding of human presence on the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula during a period of time known as the Pleistocene. Dr Stewart Finlayson and Professors Geraldine and Clive Finlayson of the Gibraltar National Museum, also participated in this work, as well as researchers from other universities and research centres in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Denmark and China, in an interdisciplinary study on the ecological and behavioural analysis of the fossilised footprint record.
Neanderthal is an extinct human taxon that lived in Europe and parts of Asia between about 400,000 and 32,000 years ago. Neanderthals were skilled hunter-gatherers, mastered the use of fire, made stone tools, and there is evidence of symbolic behaviour, such as burials and the use of pigments. However, they disappeared long ago and there is still much to understand about their lifestyles and resource-use strategies. They coexisted and even interbred with modern humans, contributing genetically to current populations outside Africa. Their extinction is still a subject of debate.
The latest reported discoveries were made at two different locations in the Algarve, southern Portugal: Praia do Monte Clérigo, in rocks dated using the most modern methods to around 78,000 years ago, and Praia do Telheiro, dated to 82,000 years ago. At Monte Clérigo, five trackways and 26 footprints were identified, including marks left by adults and toddler just over a year old, on a steep dune slope. At Praia do Telheiro, an isolated footprint attributed to an adolescent or adult female individual was discovered, associated with other fossilized footprints of birds typical of coastal and cliff environments.
The study of Neanderthal footprints offers several unique and complementary advantages over other types of archaeological remains, such as bones or tools. These footprints, preserved in sediments or sedimentary rocks, are a direct record of behaviour at a specific time. Footprints show that a Neanderthal individual was physically present at a given location, unlike artifacts, which may have been transported or abandoned. Footprints record a specific moment, almost instantaneously, allowing us to reconstruct what was happening, for example, a group walk, a chase, or presence in a given landscape. Footprints show how Neanderthals used space, how they explored coastal environments, forests, dunes, or riverbanks, something that is difficult to infer from artifacts alone. Through the number, size, and arrangement of footprints, it is possible to infer a minimum number of individuals present, the age range (children, teenagers, adults), or the possible division of tasks (e.g. a hunting party). Children and infants, who rarely leave archaeological traces (e.g. fossils or tools), can be identified through footprints, revealing more about social structure. In short, footprints offer a rare and dynamic window into everyday behaviour: a “snapshot” of life tens of thousands of years ago.
In the Portuguese cases, the footprints studied by the research team indicate locomotion strategies adapted to the coastal terrain, suggesting route planning, proximity to camp, possible hunting behaviour and coexistence with other species. One of the trackways shows, for example, the interaction between human and deer footprints produced at the same time, reinforcing the hypothesis of pursuit or ambush practices in a dune context.
Furthermore, the study used ecological network analysis, based on mathematical network theory, to relate data from other known coastal archaeological sites in the Iberian Peninsula, including Gibraltar, confirming that the Neanderthal diet in these regions was rich mainly in deer, horses and hares/rabbits, supplemented by marine and coastal resources, and signalling a diversified dietary strategy.
The new findings demonstrate that Neanderthals were more versatile and ecological and cognitively adapted to coastal environments than previously thought, providing a rare window into their behaviour, mobility and social organization.
This important paper adds to our work in Gibraltar where we have been showing the extent to which Neanderthals exploited the coast and its resources. We have been privileged to have been invited to participate in this international study. With recent links having been shown between the Gibraltar and French coastal Neanderthals, we have now turned our attention towards the Atlantic, with clear links with those living along the Portuguese coast. We are getting closer to understanding the dynamics of regional populations of Neanderthals for whom the coast was clearly vital.
Dr Stewart Finlayson, co-author
The National Gibraltar Museum
Gibraltar.
Publication:
AbstractThis discovery leaves young-Earth creationists in a familiar but increasingly uncomfortable position. Either they must reject the scientific dating methods outright — not just OSL, but the broader principles of physics and geology on which it is based — or they must twist the evidence into an implausible post-Flood narrative that grows more convoluted with every new find. In either case, their position drifts further from the coherent, predictive framework of science and deeper into special pleading and ad hoc rationalisations.
Multiple sources of evidence for the systematic use of coastal ecosystems and resources by Neanderthals are known. Fossil hominin footprints offer direct portraits of individual or social group presence and locomotor behavior, and interspecific interactions, in the coastal ecospace. Here we describe the first two hominin tracksites found in the southwestern most region of Europe. At Monte Clérigo, dated to 78 ± 5 ka, trackways of three individuals demonstrate how Neanderthals navigated dune landscapes. These behaviors suggest route planning, with dune systems serving as advantageous settings for ambush hunting or stalking prey. A single footprint at Praia do Telheiro site, dated to 82 ± 5 ka, sustains the presence of Neanderthals in the dune ecosystem during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5a. Network analysis provided dietary preferences and ecological interactions of Neanderthals in coastal areas. A review of the Neanderthal coastal sites associated with faunal evidence shows that their diet was primarily centered on cervids, horses and hares. The consistent presence of these mammal taxa highlights their role as reliable food sources, irrespective of the varying environments inhabited by Neanderthals. In addition, the Neanderthal diet also incorporated animals from neighboring littoral habitats, indicating a broad foraging strategy that capitalized on local biodiversity.
Introduction
Understanding the eco-geographical dispersion of distinct hominin groups in the Pleistocene is crucial to our understanding of their abilities for surviving in specific environments. The coast, particularly the Atlantic, is highly important because of the role of coastal habitats in the evolution of human modernity, where coastal adaptations, including the exploitation of marine resources and shoreline settlements, appear to have been pivotal1,2,3,4. According to Marean5 the use of marine resources, specifically shellfish, provided predictable high rank dietary resources that allowed a reduction of mobility and an increase in population among Anatomical Modern Humans (AMHs). Coastal habitats are rich in biomass and offer numerous easily accessible and predictable dietary resources for hunter-gatherers. Such coastal occupation and exploitation appear to have had similar outcomes for Neanderthals for which there is increasing evidence for their presence in Mediterranean and Atlantic coastal areas of mainly small family-based groups3,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13.
The use of coastal environments by Pleistocene humans underscores the importance of these areas in shaping hominin cognitive and social development. However, the postglacial sea level rise has considerably complicated the preservation and detection of Neanderthal evidence along the Atlantic coastline, constraining our understanding of the limits of the Neanderthal ecological niche and the consequent extent of their geographical dispersion4,14. During the Pleistocene, sea levels were periodically lower than present levels, particularly during glacial periods, resulting in the substantial expansion of coastal habitats accessible to hominin hunter-gatherers4. These expanded coastlines provided rich sedimentary environments for hominin occupation and resource exploitation. Sedimentary environments such as sea caves, dune systems, tidal flats and coastal lagoons have the potential to provide access to a record of millions of footprints and other animal tracks, feeding remains and tools, as these are currently being exposed, and eventually destroyed, by sea level rise15,16.
The components of Neanderthal behavior include spatial mobility, subsistence strategies, lithic technology and raw material procurement, and demography17. Hominin footprints and trackways can be used to trace Neanderthal behaviors. Reconstructing Neanderthal behavioral ecology is essential for understanding their diets and interactions with other animals, as well as social organization and spatial ecological patterns18 Footprints can provide valuable data for reconstructing the environment and ecology of the ancient landscape, and the behavior of its inhabitants, including insights into the behavior and biomechanical capabilities of hominins19 including Neanderthals.
Footprints are the combined result of foot anatomy, gait dynamics, and substrate properties20. They reflect the pressure distribution as the foot makes contact with the substrate, but also the sediment geomechanical properties. Therefore, fossil footprints record in vivo the behavior of extinct hominins and they offer a great potential to reveal locomotor patterns at various times and places across the human fossil record21. They can also provide direct information on biological characteristics, such as stature and age of hominin groups14,22,23. Such information can be obtained from morphometry, either from trackways or isolated footprints24,25. When found in the same track-bearing surface outside cave environments, footprints can be used to quantify the size and composition of a Neanderthal social group26. In reality, footprints are only preserved if the substrate conditions permit and when rapidly buried, thus representing a snapshot of life. By recording in situ a fleeting biological activity, fossil tracks provide a level of detail that usually escapes other kinds of, more strictly archeological, records. In this way, they differ from most archeological sites which represent palimpsests. Hominin footprints and other animal tracks associations and their interactions with the environment, which may also be identified through spatial analysis and temporal markers (as in the case of overprinting between different trackmakers), can help reconstruct in detail a site’s paleobiological context and the chronological dynamics of its frequentation. Intra- and intergroup, and trophic interactions usually occurred over a rather narrow timeframe, that coincided with the last phase of the context’s lifetime before it was buried by new sediments19.
Footprints produced in non-coherent sedimentary substrates are usually ephemeral and degrade very quickly after formation. Exceptional conditions for their preservation include sudden burial episodes or environments with high sedimentary rates, which may inhibit intense trampling; these can be found in coastal areas. The fossil record of hominin footprints, and especially the ones attributed to Neanderthals, is exceedingly rare although increasing rapidly in the last few years with a rise in interest as a source of important ichnoarcheological27 anthropometric and paleobiological information (for an updated list see28). Here we describe and present geochronological data for two new hominin tracksites found in eolianite deposits (dune bioclastic sands cemented by carbonate) in Portugal, from a time when Neanderthals were the only hominin species known in the Iberian Peninsula29,30,31,32. The findings presented add to previous records from the coast of SW Iberia33,34,35 providing a unique opportunity to examine the close ecological interplay between Neanderthals, animals, and their environments.
Fig 1.
World map distribution of Pleistocene coastal marine hominin tracksites known to date (A), highlighting the main AMHs tracksites known in South Africa, environmental and chronologically correlatives of Iberian Peninsula (B), and the two new tracksites in Portugal described in this paper, within the realm of Iberian Peninsula hominin ichnology (C); MIS refers to the marine isotope stages and sub-stages: Happisburgh, England (~ 950−850 ka/MIS 25−21) with Homo antecessor as likely producers24,36; Terra Amata, France (~ 380 ka/MIS 10) with H. heidelbergensis as likely producer39; Garden Route National Park at Gericke’s Point, South Africa (~ 153 ka/MIS 6) with AMHs as producer43; Matalascañas, Spain (~ 151 ka/MIS 6) with Neanderthals as producers33; Catalan Bay, Gibraltar (late MIS 6-to-MIS 5) with Neanderthals as producers33; Nahoon Point, South Africa (~ 127 ka/MIS 5e) with Anatomical Modern Humans (AMHs) as producers44; Langebaan, South Africa (~ 117 ka/MIS 5c) with AMHs as producers44; Brenton-on-Sea, South Africa (~ 90 ka/MIS 5b) with AMHs as producers45; Larache, Morocco (~ 90 ka/MIS 5b) with AMHs as producers16; Goukamma Nature Reserve sites 1 and 2 (~ 89 and 76, respectively/MIS 5b and 5a) with AMHs as producers43,46; Praia do Telheiro, Portugal (~ 82 ka/MIS 5a) with Neanderthals as producers (present work); Le Rozel, France (~ 80 ka/MIS 5a) with Neanderthals as producers26; Monte Clérigo, Portugal (~ 78 ka/MIS 5a) with Neanderthals as producers (present work); Mt. Songak, South Korea (~ 25.7–19.6 ka cal BP/MIS 2) with AMHs as producers47,48,49; Calvert Island, Canada (~ 13 ka/MIS 1) with AMHs as producers50; Pehuen-Co, Argentina (~ 12 ka/MIS 1) with AMHs as producers51. Map produced with Corel Draw X8 (www.coreldraw.com).
Fig 2.
Hominin footprints in Pleistocene coastal deposits. (A) 3D photogrammetry image of the oldest known AMHs footprint, dated to ~ 153 ka, from Gericke’s Point in the Garden Route National Park, South Africa; the footprint is 24 cm long (image by Charles Helm). (B) Two of the Nahoon Point hominin footprints (avian tracks are also evident; photo by Charles Helm). (C) Pehuén-co ichnosite: human trackway following from close a giant ground sloth trackway in a drying muddy substrate; they were produced in very different substrate conditions, which enable questioning of the hunting interpretation (photo by Teresa Manera di Bianco; no metric scale was provided). (D) Matalascañas Trampled Surface with a Neanderthal trackway (photo by José María Galán; scale in cm). (E) Footprints of Neanderthals travelling in opposite directions and overlapping, on a beach substrate at Cape Trafalgar (photo by Florian Lipp; lens cap is 5.8 cm). (F) Detail of a male adult footprint from the same beach deposit at Cape Trafalgar surrounded by expulsion rims and showing the preservation of the toe prints (photo by the authors; scale in cm).
Fig 3.
Stratigraphic logs of the Neanderthal tracksites in SW Portugal: Monte Clérigo site (A), at the northern end of Monte Clérigo beach; Praia do Telheiro site, located in a small creek close to the beach. Correlation with the well dated Castelejo section geographically located between the two studied sections (D), Monte Clérigo (C) at north, and Praia do Telheiro (E) at south. 1—Paleozoic turbidites; 2—Lower Jurassic marls; 3—conglomerate; maximum clast size = 30–35 cm; 4—cross-bedded eolianite; 5—colluvial deposits; 6—paleosol; 7—gravel lens; 8—low-angle laminated sandstone; 9—Holocene unconsolidated dunes; 10—Hominin tracksite; OSL/14C ages: Monte Clérigo and Praia do Telheiro in this paper; Castelejo OSL dates by Figueiredo115; Castelejo and Praia do Telheiro radiocarbon dates by Martins106.
Fig 4.
Hominin tracksites in eolianites from the SW coast of Portugal. (A) General view of the main tracksite with hominin trackways located in the northern cliff of Monte Clérigo beach (authors for scale); (B) Footprint D1 from the trackway D evidencing the differential preservation of the deeper forefoot print as result of moving upslope (scale in cm); (C) PI2 Isolated footprint with impression of the adducted hallux and toe declination angle (scale in cm); (D) Deformation of sediment laminae in the cross section of a footprint: downfold in the lateral margin of the footprint and upfold in the bottom of the footprint (scale in cm); (E) Very small footprint (P2T), with evidence for the toes and absence of the medial longitudinal arch. The apparent large width by comparison with the length results from lateral slippage; scale bar is 50 mm; (F) The footprint P1T with only the ball and toes, especially the hallux, well imprinted (scale in cm); (G) One of the footprints of trackway C with the heel as the deepest part and evidence for longitudinal slippage; ruler segments are 20 cm; (H) Footprint preserved isolated over a broken laminae at Praia do Telheiro stream, with displacement rim around the posterior area of the footprint (scale in cm).
Fig 5.
Photogrammetric models from the main track-bearing surface from Monte Clérigo. (A) Depth map showing the distribution of the trackways and footprints described in the text. (B) Bidimensional interpretation of the trackways and locomotion trajectories described based on the 3D model; in yellow and light blue are represented the artiodactyl trackway and an undetermined trackway, respectively; (C) 3D image in real colors of the footprint P1T highlighting the main morphological features (scale is 5 cm); (D) Depth map of the PI2 footprint in an oblique angle to highlight the forefoot morphological features (scale is 5 cm). Depth maps and 3D image produced with MeshLab 2020.1288 (https://www.meshlab.net/) and CloudCompare 2.11.0.89 (https://cloudcompare.org/), and compiled using Inkscape 0.92.390 (https://inkscape.org).
Fig 6.
Distribution of Neanderthal coastal sites in Iberia. The selected sites include coastal caves, open-air sites and tracksites. The faunas stratigraphic and geochronological associated to the direct (bones) or indirect (footprints, artifacts) remains of Neanderthals provide diagnostic information to reconstitute their dietary ecology. Map produced with Corel Draw X8 (www.coreldraw.com).
de Carvalho, C.N., Cunha, P.P., Belo, J. et al.
Neanderthal coasteering and the first Portuguese hominin tracksites. Sci Rep 15, 23785 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-06089-4
Copyright: © 2025 The authors.
Published by Springer Nature Ltd. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)
The footprints are not isolated anomalies. They fit neatly into a growing body of evidence from archaeology, palaeontology, genetics, and geology that maps the presence of Neanderthals across Europe over hundreds of thousands of years. From stone tools and burial sites to cave art and DNA, every strand of data confirms that these were a distinct hominin lineage that thrived long before the mythical biblical timeline permits. The footprints are simply another snapshot of that ancient world — direct, tangible impressions of lives lived tens of thousands of years ago.
For creationists, however, such clarity is not welcome. The idea that children were running across a beach in southern Europe nearly 80,000 years ago, long before Adam, Eve, or Noah, is not just a challenge to their timeline — it’s a refutation of it. Each footprint, pressed into soft sand and preserved by time, is another silent but enduring testament to a deep human past that biblical literalism cannot accommodate. And no amount of denial can erase those tracks.
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