The Volcano Print Roccamonfina volcano, Italy 325,000 to 385,000 years ago

The tracks were originally disovered by locals and called the "Devil's Trail". Paolo Mietto of Padua University and his colleagues investigated the prints. Three sets of footprints have been found descending the Roccamonfina volcano in southern Italy and were dated at 385,000 to 325,000 years ago using radiometric techniques.

While these tracks are being called "the oldest human footprints found", several scientific magazine and articles report that these tracks were made by "hominids", probably the species "Homo Erectus" or "Homo heidelbergensis" and not "homo sapiens" (modern man). The term "hominid" is applied to any species of the evolutionary scale between the ape ancestors of man to modern man. (see Hominid Species).

There is nothing in the prints themselves to suggest they belong to anything but modern humans. It is the evolutionary timetable, which places the first true humans, homo sapiens, at about 120,000 years ago that drives the scientists to make the claim that these were hominids rather than modern humans.

There is nothing to suggest that these prints are not modern humans.