In a remote area of South Africa, a remarkable geological feature has captured the attention of geologists and researchers for over a century: a giant footprint imprinted in rough granite. Discovered in 1912 by a hunter named Stoffel Coetzee, this footprint, measuring approximately 4 feet in length, has sparked debate and speculation about its origin and age.
Granite rock
Discovery and Location
This amazing footprint in granite was discovered in 1912 by a hunter called Stoffel Coetzee, while hunting in the remote area. It remains in the same condition as it was when first discovered and the possibility that this was a carved hoax is extremely low because of its remote location. Even today, it is difficult to find.
Estimated Age and Geological Composition
It is estimated to be between 200 million and 3 Billion years old because of our current understanding of the formation of granites in Earth’s history. The footprint can be described as a “phenocrystic” granite, OR coarse porphyritic granite, that underwent several different stages of cooling. The result being an interesting mixture of large and small granules.
The Mystery Deepens
The real mystery is how this amazing phenomenon occurred - I have no idea - but here it is and we cannot wish it away. Geologists have been marvelling at this giant foot print in rough granite, about 4 feet long. Prof. Pieter Wagener from UPE, suggests that “thereis a higher probability of little green men arriving from space and licking it out with their tongues, than being created by natural erosion”. This is a real mystery that needs close scientific examination.
A Giant Footprint in South Africa
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Similar Discoveries Around the World
Stories and tales about gigantic beings inhabiting the Earth occur in almost all ancient cultures and civilizations. From the Indo-Europeans, to the Greeks, to the Christian Bible, tales of giants have been passed down from generation to generation and these stories still exist in modern day. There has never been any concrete evidence to prove the existence of giants, that is unless you believe the giant footprints that have been found across the globe. Multiple giant footprints have been discovered and are thought to be millions if not billions of years old. To the locals where these footprints can be found they are known as “the footprints of god.” Could the history books and what we know of evolution be wrong?
The Pingyan Giant Footprint
In August 2016, a giant human-shaped footprint was discovered by a group of photographers in Pingyan village in Guizhou, the southwestern province of China. The footprint was said to be 57 cm long, 20 cm wide, and 3 cm deep. Found fossilized in rock, the footprint was dated back to the prehistoric era. Considering that the average foot size of a man is 18 cm, and the average for a woman is 16.5 cm, this discovery would be monumental and leave historians and scientists alike questioning what we know of human history and evolution.
Close up of the alleged giant’s footprint.
The original article regarding the footprint gives a barebones description of the discovery and lists its sources merely as “agencies.” However, according to Snopes.com a search was done of the local newspapers near Guizhou and no article was written about the giant footprint in August 2016. Therefore, no reputable source has published any work on the topic, neither in the media or the scientific community.
Other Footprint Discoveries
Tellinger supposedly found another giant footprint in Africa in 2012 and he was convinced that it was one of the best pieces of evidence proving that giants once roamed the earth. While Tellinger claims to be an archaeologist, many have denounced him as a conspiracy theorist. A third footprint was discovered in Bolivia but CNN reported that the print was from a large carnivorous dinosaur rather than an ancient giant. Prior to that, another massive footprint was found in New Mexico by Jerry MacDonald in 1987 which measuring 100 cm in length and was said to be 290 million years old. This print was recorded as the largest footprint made by a meat-eating dinosaur. However, this print has been problematic for paleontologists since there is no explanation as to how it got there or what left it.
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The Debate Continues
The giant footprint of Pingyan is said to have been fossilized in solid granite, a material that does not lend itself to capturing any type of print. Also, the rock is most likely closer to 3.1 billion years old, as opposed to 200 million. While the discovery of these other footprints has led to more and more questions, more research is being done on the topic. Could these footprints have come from ancient giant humans, possibly even our ancestors? There is no certainty yet. However, the research that has already been done points to that answer being unlikely.
Eve's Footprint
Eve's footprint is the popular name for a set of fossilised footprints discovered on the shore of Langebaan Lagoon, South Africa in 1995. They are thought to be those of a female human and have been dated to approximately 117,000 years ago. This makes them the oldest known footprints of an anatomically modern human. The three footprints were found in 1995 by geologist David Roberts from the Council for Geoscience and announced at a press conference with paleoanthropologist Lee R. Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand at Johannesburg, South Africa, at the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C.
Replica of Eve's footprint
Berger and Roberts say the prints were made on a steep sand dune during a turbulent rainstorm. The location where they were found is in southwest South Africa about 120 kilometres (75 mi) northwest of Cape Town in the West Coast National Park. In one foot impression the big toe, ball, arch, and heel are clearly discernible, with a maximum depression of 3.2 cm. Roberts thinks that the prints belong to an ancient female about 1.5 metres (4 feet 11 inches) tall.
Other Discoveries of Hominin Ichnosites
Only four sites had been reported in the whole of Africa at that time. Two were from East Africa: Laetoli in Tanzania and Koobi Fora in Kenya; two were from South Africa (Nahoon and Langebaan). The situation now is very different. It appears that people were not looking hard enough, or were not looking in the right places. Today the African tally for dated hominin ichnosites (a term that includes both tracks and other traces) older than 50,000 years stands at 14. These can conveniently be divided into an East African cluster (five sites) and a South African cluster from the Cape coast (nine sites). The oldest human footprint was found along South Africa’s southern coast, where other important fossil tracks have been discovered.
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In a 2023 article in Ichnos, the international journal of trace fossils, we provided the ages of seven newly dated hominin ichnosites that we have identified in the past five years on South Africa’s Cape south coast. We found that the sites ranged in age; the most recent dates back about 71,000 years. The new dates corroborate the archaeological record.
East African vs South African Track Sites
There are significant differences between the East African and South African tracksite clusters. The East African sites are much older: Laetoli, the oldest, is 3.66 million years old and the youngest is 0.7 million years old. The tracks were not made by Homo sapiens, but by earlier species such as australopithecines, Homo heidelbergensis and Homo erectus. The Laetoli footprints, at more than 3.6 million years old, are the oldest known footprints from our family tree-but they were not made by our species. The South African sites on the Cape coast, by contrast, are substantially younger. All have been attributed to Homo sapiens.
Dating the Footprints
A key challenge when studying the palaeo-record-trackways, fossils, or any other kind of ancient sediment-is determining how old the materials are. Without this it is difficult to evaluate the wider significance of a find, or to interpret the climatic changes that create the geological record. This method of dating shows how long ago a grain of sand was exposed to sunlight; in other words, how long that section of sediment has been buried.
The overall date range of our findings for the hominin ichnosites-about 153,000 to 71,000 years in age-is consistent with ages in previously reported studies from similar geological deposits in the region. The 153,000 year old track was found in the Garden Route National Park, west of the coastal town of Knysna on the Cape south coast.
The work of our research team, based in the African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa, is not done. We suspect that further hominin ichnosites are waiting to be discovered on the Cape south coast and elsewhere on the coast.
| Footprint | Location | Estimated Age | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Giant Footprint | South Africa | 200 million - 3 billion years | Discovered in 1912 by Stoffel Coetzee |
| Pingyan Giant Footprint | Pingyan village, Guizhou, China | Prehistoric Era | Discovered in 2016 |
| Eve's Footprint | Langebaan Lagoon, South Africa | Approximately 117,000 years | Oldest known footprints of an anatomically modern human |
| Laetoli Footprints | Laetoli, Tanzania | 3.66 million years | Made by earlier species such as australopithecines |
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