Possible hominin footprints from the late Miocene (c. 5.7 Ma) of Crete?
Gerard Gierliński cs 2017 Proc.Geol.Assoc.128:aat697-710
doi org/10.1016/j.pgeola.2017.07.006 open access
We describe late-Miocene tetrapod tracks from Trachilos + hominin-like characteristics.
They occur in an emergent horizon, within an otherwise marginal marine succession, Messinian, c 5.7 Ma, just prior to the Messinian Salinity Crisis: the track-maker lacked claws, and was BP, plantigrade, pentadactyl & strongly entaxonic ("inner digits
more strongly developed > outer" --mv).
The impression of the large & non-divergent hallux has a narrow neck & bulbous asymmetrical distal pad.
The lateral digit impressions become progressively smaller: the digital region as a whole is strongly asymmetrical.
A large, rounded ball impression is ass.x the hallux.
Morphometric analysis: the footprints have outlines, distinct from modern non-hominin primates, and resemble hominins.
The interpretation of these footprints is potentially controversial.
The print morphology suggests: the trackmaker was a basal member of the clade Hominini, but Crete is some distance outside the known geographical range of pre-Pleistocene hominins: did they represent a hitherto unknown late-Miocene primate, that
convergently evolved human-like foot anatomy?

Age constraints for the Trachilos footprints from Crete
Uwe Kirscher cs 2021 Sci Rep 11:19427 doi 10.1038/s41598-021-98618-0
We present an updated time frame for the 30-m-thick late-Miocene sedimentary Trachilos section + the potentially oldest hominin footprints.
The section is characterized by normal magnetic polarity.
New & published foraminifera bio-stratigraphy results suggest an age of the section within the Medit.biozone MMi13d, < ~6.4 Ma.
Calcareous nanno-plankton data from sediments exposed near Trachilos (same sub-basin) indicate deposition during calcareous nannofossil bio-zone CN9bB, between 6.023 & 6.727 Ma.
By integrating the magneto- & bio-stratigraphic data, we correlate the Trachilos section with normal polarity Chron C3An.1n, between 6.272 & 6.023 Ma.
Using cyclo-stratigraphic data, based on magnetic susceptibility, we constrain the Trachilos footprints age at ~ 6.05 Ma (c 0.35 My older than previously thought).
Some uncertainty remains related to an inaccessible interval of ~8 m section, and the possibility that the normal polarity might represent the slightly older Chron C3An.2n.
But sediment accumulation rate & bio-stratigraphic arguments stand against these points, and favor a deposition during Chron C3An.1n.

About the age and depositional depth of the sediments with reported
bipedal footprints at Trachilos (NW Crete, Greece)
Willem Zachariasse & Lucas Lourens 2022 Sci Rep 12:18471
doi 10.1038/s41598-022-23296-5
New data on the foraminifers & the regional geological setting of the Trachilos sediments (from which Gierlinski cs 2017 described hominin-like footprints) show: the published 6.05 Ma-shallow marine interpretation is incorrect.
In our new interpretation, the Trachilos succession is Late-Pliocene, part of a shallowing marine series, that became subaerially exposed c 3 Ma.
Placed in a larger geological context, Crete was an island during the Late-Pliocene, separated by ~100 km of open sea from the nearest European mainland, therefore out of reach of Late-Pliocene hominins.

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