WHERE HUMANS WALKED

Footprints are a good indication that some living creature has been present in a locality. When men first visited the moon they left footprints in the lunar dust. Since there is no weather on the moon, these were prints will remain uneroded, and even if thousands of years elapsed, future visitors to the moon could be certain that humans had been there in the past. On earth footprints don't normally last very long, being erased by the elements. Sometimes, however, footprints are preserved, and become a lasting testimony to their originators. These footprints often present a dilemma to those who believe in evolution.

'TOO OLD' FOOTPRINTS

It is a fact that human feet are unique in the living world, so there should be no problem in recognizing them. The problem for evolutionists arises when human footprints are found in rocks which, according to their theory, are 'too old'. When 'out-of-place' fossils are found, evolutionists sometimes claim that they have fallen down a crack in the rocks to appear at the 'wrong' level. That argument can hardly be used with regard to footprints!

In 1978, anthropologist Mary Leakey made a startling discovery at the Laetoli in Tanzania. She uncovered two trails of footprints preserved in hardened volcanic ash. Writing in National Geographic she claimed that her find would cause 'yet more upheaval in the study of human origins'.¹ Why? Because the rocks in which the footprints were found were dated at 3.6 million years old, and were just like the footprints of modern humans!

Human feet are unique and leave unmistakable prints.

Footprint expert Dr. Louise Robbins was quoted as saying, 'They looked so human, so modern, to be found in tuffs so old.'² The prints had the raised arch, rounded heel and forward-pointing big toe which are characteristic of modern humans. However, because according to the evolution theory true human beings appeared less than 2 million years ago, they could not accept that the prints were made by human beings like ourselves!

With the footprints were found impressions of leaves, and the prints of giraffes, hares, guinea-fowl, elephants and ostriches which were just like their modern counterparts. Yet when National Geographic reconstructed the scene, evolutionary bias [what else?] demanded that the two 'hominids' which made the tracks should be depicted as 'ape-men.' The excuse given was that australopithecine fossils had been found in the area. Fossil remains show that these 'southern apes' — that's what australopithecine means — were very ape-like in appearance. Apes' feet are more like a hand, and no fossils have ever been found showing a transition between ape-like and human-like feet. Yet the National Geographic picture gave the two 'ape-man' who made the tracks human-like feet! The artist had no problem with the giraffes, hares, guinea-fowl, elephants and ostriches however, since they are all believed to have existed at the time. The theory of evolution simply could not accommodate true human beings walking around 3.6 million years ago, so in order to preserve the theory, the facts work ignored.

Apes' feet are more like a hand, and easily distinguishable from those of humans

OTHER PRINTS REJECTED

There have been many reports of human-like prints in rocks which are too old according to evolution. All are controversial, but this is usually because they conflict with the theory rather than their appearance. In 1940, a main-stream science magazine reported human-like prints in Carboniferous rocks — 280-345 million years old according to evolutionary dating, a time when amphibians are supposed to have been evolving into reptiles, and most of the earth's coal deposits were formed. Yet in rocks of this 'age' a large number of fossil footprints have been found, showing every evidence of having been formed by human feet. But scientist Albert C. Ingalls wrote that science 'rejects the attractive explanation that man made these mysterious prints.' And why? Because they don't look human? Not all, but because 'if man, or even his ape ancestor, or even that ape ancestor's early mammalian ancestor, existed as far back as the Carboniferous Period in any shape, the whole science of geology is so completely wrong that all geologists will resign their jobs and take up truck driving!'³

CONTROVERSIAL

For many years the presence of human-like footprints with those of dinosaurs have been reported, including those in the Paluxy Riverbed in Texas, which are still the subject of great controversy. Similar evidence of human and dinosaur prints together was reported in Russia in 1986, and Professor Kurban Amanniyazov commented that the find may 'create a revolution in the science of man.'⁴ Since we have heard nothing further about this find, does this mean it was not genuine, or that it was too embarrassing to evolutionary scientists? Since the human foot is so unique, it ought not to be too difficult to decide whether such prints are genuine, and each find should be judged on its merits, not on whether or not it fits a theory. What we can say, however, is that from a Biblical point of view humans could have left footprints in rocks of any 'age', since human beings were created by God in the beginning — a beginning that was thousands, not millions of years ago.

REFERENCES:

1. See Out-of-Place Fossils and Artifacts, CRT Factsheet No. 9.
2. National Geographic, Vol. 155, April 1979, p. 446f.
3. 'The Carboniferous Mystery',Scientific American, Vol. 162, Jan. 1940, p. 14.
4. Moscow News No. 24, 1986.

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