The journal Nature reports that 350,000-year-old footprints have been found in Italy.
The Ciampate del Diavolo (Neapolitan: "Devil's Footprints" or "Devil's Trails") is a locality near the extinct Roccamonfina volcano in northern Campania, Italy. It is named after fossilised footprints preserved in pyroclastic flow deposits that have been dated to around 350,000 years ago. They have been attributed to bipedal hominids, possibly Homo heidelbergensis, which is known to have inhabited the region at the time.
The footprints comprise three sets of tracks indicating that three hominids made their way down a steep slope on the flank of the volcano, away from the crater. The tracks were preserved under a layer of volcanic ash and were revealed by erosion, probably in the late 18th to early 19th century. Local people attributed the prints to the Devil as they regarded him as the only being capable of walking on lava without harm. They were identified as hominid footprints after archaeologists examined them in 2002 and are the second oldest set of hominid footprints known outside Africa, after the Happisburgh footprints.
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