Along the coast near Formby, England, erosion is revealing something extraordinary: thousands of ancient footprints left by humans and animals. Stretching for almost two miles, this muddy path once served as a busy route, and researchers say it offers an “amazing snapshot of the past.”
Humans and animals have been walking this corridor for thousands of years, from the Mesolithic period to medieval times. Alison Burns, the lead author of a study in Nature Ecology and Evolution, explains that as glaciers melted and sea levels rose after the last ice age, people and wildlife were forced inland, creating a hub of activity now preserved in mud and sand. Tracks include everything from humans to aurochs, red deer, wild boars, and even cranes.
Stacked Footprints Beneath the Sand
At Formby, there are roughly 36 layers of footprints, some stacked on top of one another. Researchers report these layers date from the Mesolithic all the way to medieval times, roughly 15,000 B.C. to 1450 A.D. Seeds from alder, birch, and spruce trees were found in the layers and radiocarbon-dated, helping scientists figure out exactly when these tracks were made.
Some prints are incredibly detailed. Alison Burnspointed out one trackway where a barefoot human took a few steps and then stopped.
“They were barefoot, and the footprints were fantastic; the mud has oozed up between each toe, so you get all the features of the footprint. Immediately adjacent to them were prints from a crane. The person could very well have been looking for birds to hunt during a scouting expedition. And beside the crane, there is a clear set of adult red deer tracks nearby.”
In just two square meters, researchers say, the scene captures an entire moment of life thousands of years ago.
A Landscape Shared Between Humans And Animals
As reported by the study, the site also preserves a mix of animal tracks. Burns noted footprints from aurochs, red deer, wild boars, wolves, lynx, and cranes. The overlapping prints show that humans and wildlife shared the same space, moving along the same routes over centuries.
Unlike most footprint studies that focus only on humans, Formby showed how people and animals coexisted. The variety of species and stacked layers reveal how the environment influenced where humans and animals moved, especially as sea levels rose and glaciers retreated.
Footprints That Survived the Ages
The footprints were first noticed in the 1970s, but at first they were thought to be cattle tracks. In the 1990s, a retired teacher started dating them and realized how old they really were. Burns said that ongoing coastal erosion keeps exposing new layers. The top layers are fragile, but deeper tracks remain well-preserved, giving researchers an incredible chance to study thousands of years of activity.
“When the tracks were made, they were filled with sand and then a layer of mud. That’s how you get these stacks [of footprints]. Once you have four or five beds on top of each other, the top layer is vulnerable [to erosion], but the ones beneath it are quite well preserved.”
Other ancient footprints have been found in England, like 900,000-year-old human prints in Norfolk, but Formby is unusual. Burns highlights that it not only shows humans moving through the landscape, but also how multiple species shared the same environment.
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