Archaeologists Found 120,000-Year-Old Human Footprints Where They Shouldn’t Be

Key Points:

• Between 112,000 and 121,000 years ago, early Homo sapiens left seven footprints along a lakeshore in Saudi Arabia's Nefud Desert, preserved at the Alathar site and representing the oldest human footprints on the Arabian Peninsula.
• Research indicates that human populations entered Arabia multiple times during wetter "Green Arabia" periods when lakes provided water, but these groups often disappeared as the climate dried and water sources vanished.
• Archaeological evidence suggests at least five separate migrations into Arabia between 400,000 and 55,000 years ago, each associated with distinct stone tool styles, implying different populations or species moved through the region.
• The early Homo sapiens who left the Alathar footprints likely belonged to a migration wave that did not survive, as genetic data show most non-African humans descend from a later migration 50,000 to 80,000 years ago.
• Finding more definitive proof of these early populations is challenging due to the desert environment's poor preservation of fossils and ancient DNA, but ongoing research aims to discover human fossils or long-term occupation sites to better understand these early migrations.