First Neanderthal Footprints: Rewriting the Story of Early Humans on the Coast

For tens of thousands of years, the story of our closest extinct relatives, the Neanderthals, was pieced together from fragments of bone and stone tools. These remnants painted a picture of a hardy, adaptable people, skilled hunters of large game who endured the harsh climates of Ice Age Europe. However, this narrative was largely set inland, in caves and across windswept plains. The coast, it was often assumed, was a domain less familiar to them, a resource-rich environment that only modern humans, Homo sapiens, fully learned to exploit. But recent discoveries along the sun-drenched shores of the Iberian Peninsula are dramatically reshaping this long-held view. Fossilized footprints, ephemeral moments of life frozen in time, are providing an unprecedented glimpse into the lives of Neanderthals by the sea, revealing a connection to the coast far deeper and more ancient than ever imagined.

A Serendipitous Stroll on a Spanish Beach

The story begins in June 2020 on the Matalascañas beach in Doñana National Park, southern Spain. After a period of intense storms and high tides, two biologists strolling along the shore stumbled upon a surface of fossilized sediment that had been exposed. What they initially saw were the tracks of long-extinct animals like aurochs (ancient cattle), deer, and wild boars. However, a more detailed investigation by a team of paleontologists led by Eduardo Mayoral of the University of Huelva revealed something far more significant: 87 distinct hominin footprints.

Initial analysis and dating of a sediment layer just above the tracks suggested they were approximately 106,000 years old, placing them squarely in the Upper Pleistocene when Neanderthals were the only known hominins inhabiting the region. This discovery was electrifying. It was hailed as the earliest evidence of Neanderthal footprints on the Iberian Peninsula and offered a rare snapshot of a Neanderthal social group.

The footprints, ranging in size from 14 to 29 centimeters, suggested a mixed group of at least 36 individuals. Analysis of the print dimensions allowed researchers to estimate the age and stature of those who made them. The group was comprised of 11 children, and 25 adults, including males and females. The presence of so many children, including one believed to be as young as six, painted a vivid picture of a family or social group. Most intriguingly, some of the smaller footprints were arranged in a "chaotic" pattern, leading Mayoral to suggest they were left by children "as if they were playing or loitering on the shore." One set of tracks even appeared to show a child "jumping irregularly as though dancing."

This single site provided a wealth of information. It wasn’t just evidence of Neanderthals on the coast, but of a thriving, multi-generational group interacting with their environment in a relatable, human way. The location, near what was likely a watering hole, suggested they may have been there for a variety of reasons: hunting, foraging for shellfish, or simply enjoying the resources of the shoreline.

A Twist in Time: Pushing Back the Clock

As revolutionary as the initial findings were, the story of the Matalascañas footprints took a dramatic turn. Further research, employing more direct dating techniques on the footprint-bearing surface itself, yielded a stunning result. Using optically-stimulated luminescence (OSL), which can determine when sediment grains were last exposed to sunlight, scientists from the University of Seville and other institutions re-dated the site. The new age was not 106,000 years, but a staggering 295,800 years old.

This new date, published in 2022, places the footprints deep within the Middle Pleistocene, a period of significant climate change in Europe. It also means the track-makers were not the classic Neanderthals as we know them, who lived later, but likely their predecessors. The main hypothesis now points towards individuals from the Neanderthal lineage, such as Homo heidelbergensis or very early Homo neanderthalensis. This discovery makes the Matalascañas site even more valuable, as the fossil record for hominins in Europe during the Middle Pleistocene is exceptionally scarce, especially for footprints. Before this re-dating, the only older hominin footprints in Europe were found at Terra Amata and Roccamonfina in Italy, attributed to Homo heidelbergensis and dated to between 380,000 and 345,000 years ago.

The re-dating of the Matalascañas tracks fundamentally alters our understanding of early human presence on the European coastline. It suggests that a deep connection with coastal environments was not a late development for the Neanderthal lineage but was established far earlier than previously thought. During the time the prints were made, around 300,000 years ago, sea levels were significantly lower, meaning the coastline of Huelva would have been much farther out. The landscape was likely a vast coastal plain, with shallow, saline water bodies that would have attracted a host of animal life, and, evidently, our ancient relatives.

Echoes Across the Iberian Coast: The Portuguese Connection

The Matalascañas discovery does not stand alone. Further reinforcing the narrative of coastal Neanderthals, a 2025 study published in Scientific Reports unveiled the first Neanderthal footprints found in Portugal. These discoveries were made at two sites along the Algarve coast: Praia do Telheiro, dated to about 82,000 years ago, and Monte Clérigo, dated to around 78,000 years ago.

At Monte Clérigo, researchers documented five trackways and 26 individual footprints on a steep slope that was once a coastal dune. The prints were left by both adults and very young children, some estimated to be as young as one or two years old. The trackways show individuals moving both up and down the dune, suggesting coordinated movement, perhaps during a hunt or foraging expedition. One trackway even shows human footprints overlapping with those of a red deer, hinting at a possible pursuit or ambush.

At the nearby Praia do Telheiro site, a single footprint was found, likely made by a teenager or a small adult female. Together, these Portuguese sites provide direct, irrefutable evidence of Neanderthals not just visiting, but actively and skillfully navigating the dynamic coastal dune environments of Atlantic Iberia. The presence of children once again points to the coast as a landscape for family and social group activities.

Footprints as a "Snapshot" of Life

Fossilized footprints, or ichnites, offer a unique and powerful form of evidence that is complementary to skeletal remains and stone tools. Bones and tools can be transported by water or scavengers over time, but footprints provide a direct record of an individual's presence at a specific place and moment. They are, as the researchers of the Portuguese sites argue, a "snapshot of life tens of thousands of years ago."

From these snapshots, we can infer behavior in ways that are difficult with other types of evidence. The spacing and depth of the prints can reveal the speed of movement, whether an individual was walking, running, or climbing a slope. The range of sizes in a group of prints can give us direct insight into the composition of a social group, revealing the presence of children and infants who are often underrepresented in the fossil record. The tracks at Matalascañas and Monte Clérigo, with their mix of adult and juvenile prints, are a testament to this, showing that the coast was a place for the entire community.

These discoveries are part of a growing body of evidence from other coastal sites in Europe. At Le Rozel in Normandy, France, a remarkable set of 257 Neanderthal footprints dated to around 80,000 years ago was unearthed. This site, once a coastal creek bed, also showed a group dominated by children and adolescents, further cementing the idea that these coastal locations were important for Neanderthal social life.

A More Capable and Adaptable Neanderthal

The image of Neanderthals as primarily inland hunters of megafauna like mammoths and woolly rhinos has been steadily eroding for years. Evidence from cave sites, particularly in Gibraltar and Portugal, has shown that they were more than capable of exploiting a wide range of resources.

Excavations at the Figueira Brava cave in Portugal, for instance, revealed that between 86,000 and 106,000 years ago, Neanderthals had a diet that was up to 50% marine-based. They harvested mollusks, crustaceans like brown crabs, fish, and even marine mammals such as seals. The evidence suggests they did this systematically and on a large scale, even using cooking methods to roast crabs. This broad-based diet challenges the long-held theory that the consumption of omega-3-rich seafood gave Homo sapiens a decisive cognitive advantage over Neanderthals. If Neanderthals were also regularly consuming these resources, the picture becomes far more complex.

The footprints add a new, dynamic dimension to this picture of coastal adaptation. They show Neanderthals not just consuming marine resources found in caves, but actively moving through and utilizing the coastal landscape itself. An ecological network analysis based on data from various Iberian coastal sites confirms a diversified diet primarily based on terrestrial animals like deer and horses, but significantly supplemented with coastal and marine life. This dietary flexibility demonstrates a high level of ecological and cognitive adaptability. They were not simply driven to the coast out of desperation; they were masters of this environment, capable of planning routes, hunting in dune landscapes, and integrating diverse food sources into their survival strategy.

Rewriting the Story of Our Kin

The discovery of these first Neanderthal footprints on the coast is more than just a new entry in the fossil record. It is a fundamental rewriting of the Neanderthal story. It pushes back their presence in these environments by hundreds of thousands of years and replaces the image of a brutish cave-dweller with a far more nuanced and familiar portrait: that of a capable and adaptable human living a complex social life in a rich and varied landscape.

The prints on the sand at Matalascañas, Monte Clérigo, and Le Rozel are the ghostly traces of families, of adults and children moving together across ancient shorelines. They are the echoes of games played, of hunts undertaken, and of a deep, enduring connection to the sea. They remind us that the story of humanity is written not only in bone and stone, but also in the fleeting impressions left by bare feet on a sandy beach, preserved by a "miracle" of geology for us to rediscover. These discoveries challenge us to see Neanderthals not just as an extinct offshoot of our family tree, but as a parallel form of humanity, with their own rich history of exploration, adaptation, and life by the coast.

A Serendipitous Stroll on a Spanish Beach

A Twist in Time: Pushing Back the Clock

Echoes Across the Iberian Coast: The Portuguese Connection

Footprints as a "Snapshot" of Life

A More Capable and Adaptable Neanderthal

Rewriting the Story of Our Kin

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