Talk:Ciampate del Diavolo

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A fact from Ciampate del Diavolo appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 4 October 2016 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the oldest known human footprints in continental Europe (pictured) are called "devil's trails" by locals?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2016/October. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Ciampate del Diavolo.

Wikipedia

Human?

The introduction says that these prints are the oldest human footprints, but anatomically modern humans aren't thought to have existed until 200,000 years ago. Should this be renamed oldest hominid footprints outside Africa? Or oldest footprints from the homo genus? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nemoscis (talk • contribs) 10:07, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I struggle to believe these are definitely "human" if they're footprints at all, and its astounding and frustrating to me that there's not a single word suggesting otherwise or trying to counter the frankly ridiculous assertion that "yep, these definitely must be human footprints".

Untitled

Suggest rewording to better represent the uncertainty of the origin of the footprints. The provided external link leaves great doubt as to the provenance of the footprints. The text "In 2003 it was however discovered that they belong to Homo heidelbergensis, a hominid living in the area some 350,000 years ago." appears to overstep the bounds of reasonable representation of the evidence provided. Bowlingj (talk) 09:24, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've just attributed them to an unspecified hominid. -- Avenue (talk) 00:31, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Age and Origins

There's an apparent problem with the ordering in time described here:

"The pyroclastic deposits in which the footprints were imprinted were laid down around 349,000 years ago (±3,000 years), while the layer of volcanic ash which subsequently covered and preserved them was deposited around 350,000 years ago (±3,000 years)."

Obviously, the "deposits in which the footprints were imprinted" must have been laid down before the "ash which subsequently covered" them, yet the text says that the ash is 1,000 years older than the footprints! The 1,000 year difference quoted is smaller than the uncertainties on the individual dates, but that isn't going to be obvious to the reader. Either the two mean ages were swapped in the sentence, or some clarifcation should be added. --Kelseymh (talk) 03:06, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]