Archaeology but not as we know it :Mesolithic Footprints

Just spent a week down in North West England visiting the Grandchildren and we spent some time at Formby National Trust area.

We have our dinosaur footprints on Skye but down in Lancashire they have human and animal prints, of a more recent age..well relatively speaking.  At Formby we can see prints of  humans and animals (aurochs, deer, wolf, and wading birds) from Mesolithic and Neolithic times.

Image : Gordon Roberts http://formby-footprints.co.uk/human_print_pictures.html

Image : Gordon Roberts: http://formby-footprints.co.uk/animal_print_pictures.html

Sadly the Formby footprints are not true fossils and are not durable - what is visible one day may be washed away by the tide later or inadvertently destroyed by modern humans.  The prints were made in mud which was baked hard by the sun.  Each tide covered them with a thin layer of sand and silt.  Then about 4500 years ago, the shoreline moved westwards, hiding the footprints until recent coastal erosion uncovered them.

Laminated mud flats where the prints are typically found

Prints of animals and humans have been noticed since the mid 20th century but these have only relatively recently been studied.

The late Gordon Roberts (2), a local resident, spent 25 years cataloguing the prints.

Stratigraphic evidence, supported by Carbon-14, from roots and animal bones together with Optically- Stimulated Luminescence dating, indicates that the prints were created between 5400 BC and 2300 BC, from the late Mesolithic, Neolithic through to the early Bronze Age. The animal prints include aurochs (large wild cattle), deer, wolf, and wading birds.

Curiously the coastline in Formby today is very similar to the Mesolithic coastline.

Because of erosion, the present coastline around Formby Point coincides roughly with the shoreline of the late Mesolithic to the late Neolithic period, ie from c5000 BC to c3000 BC. However, the environment was quite different from today's environment. The climate was probably warmer. There was probably dense woodland (the woodland which exists here today - the Pinewoods - was only planted 60-100 years ago) and salt marshes.

Research (1) indicates that the male height was between1.65m 1.88m - not much different to today's heights. Female height was between 1.48m and 1.75m

I found a series of around 24 footprints but not continuous – there was a stretch where no prints were visible due to a break in the mud flats.  The prints were human, about my size in boots (size 6) but longer stride – ie I would have to stretch out to keep in step – and splay footed ie where my prints would be more or less parallel these turned outwards each step.

From what I have read this would correspond to a male, probably a little taller than me and probably running.  I didn’t have a tape measure with me but at home measured my foot in boots to be 24 cm. The calculation is approximately length of foot x 7 = height. My foot in boots is 24 cm, x 7 = 168 cm

Men, women and children appear to have worked as a group collecting shells or looking for nesting birds.  However, male prints often  occur in the same areas as red deer and have different stride patterns from the women and children. This suggests that the men were hunting.

Most of the prints are barefooted - some show clear details of the individual toes!  It is believed that moccasins were worn in the reed beds which existed then- as some footprints show a softer outline.

Although Formby is rather a long way from Skye - I believe the results of the research carried out on these footprints could be relevant to the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age peoples on Skye.  For example it would be reasonable to assume a similar protein rich diet - the same seafood and animals would be available here.  It might therefore be reasonable to assume that the Skye people might have been similar in height.

References:
 (1) 
https://www.academia.edu/8297938/The_Prehistoric_Footprints_at_Formby
(2) 
http://formby-footprints.co.uk/