“an international research team led by scientists from the University of Tübingen and the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment presents the earliest human footprints known from Germany. The tracks were discovered in the roughly 300,000-year-old Schöningen Paleolithic site complex in Lower Saxony. The footprints, presumably from Homo heidelbergensis, are surrounded by several animal tracks – collectively, they present a picture of the ecosystem at that time. The project is funded by the Ministry of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony and the University of Tübingen. In an open birch and pine forest with an understory of grasses sits a lake, a few kilometers long and several hundred meters wide. On its muddy shores, herds of elephants, rhinoceroses, and even-toed ungulates gather to drink or bathe. In the midst of this scenery stands a small family of ‘Heidelberg people,’ a species of human long since extinct.”—”300,000-Year-Old Snapshot: Oldest Human Footprints from Germany Found. Three fossil footprints of Homo heidelbergensis discovered among prehistoric elephant tracks at the Schöningen site in Lower Saxony.”