Ann GibbonsOne day about 120,000 years ago, a few humans wandered along the shore of an ancient lake in what is now the Nefud Desert in Saudi Arabia.
They may have paused for a drink of fresh water or to track herds of elephants, wild asses, and camels that were trampling the mudflats.
Within hours of passing through, the humans’ and animals’ footprints dried out and eventually fossilized.Now, these ancient footsteps offer rare evidence of when and where early humans once inhabited the Arabian Peninsula. “These are the first genuine human footprints of Arabia,” says archaeologist and team leader Michael Petraglia of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.The Arabian Peninsula has long been considered the obvious route.