MESOLITHIC FOOTPRINTS AT PORT EYNON

In 2014, storms revealed a mud bank at Port Eynon, Gower, that showed footprints believed to date from the Bronze Age.

In a UK context, there are only 12 coastal sites that have ancient human footprints. Several different circumstances have to combine to preserve the prints, such as a soft (but not too soft), wet surface to allow an imprint to be created, which is then filled in by another material in an environment warm enough for the impressions to dry out. The survival of such footprints is always under threat by coastal erosion.

In March 2019, Cowbridge U3A History Group welcomed Dr Rhiannon Philp, whose PhD thesis, started in late 2014, was based on researching the Port Eynon footprints at the infrequent, suitable periods of very low tides, when there were low sand deposits on the beach.

Fieldwork commenced in 2015 when a party went to Port Eynon to search for footprints in the peat deposits revealed by the tide. Rhiannon told the audience that it was her mother who was the first to spot some prints. Eventually, shoeless human footprints, both adults and children, and animal tracks were found.

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Because the tide imposed constraints on recording the footprints (there was only a 2 hour window), plastic sheets, positions recorded by GPS, were used for mapping, with the footprints being traced onto them by pen.

Also, due to the environment, it was not possible to take casts of the footprints, but multiple photographs taken at different angles allowed for 3D models of the impressions to be made. Rhiannon circulated a model of the footprint of a child, probably aged 6-8, in which a deer had subsequently made a hoof print.

The presence of red deer, roe deer, wild boar (or pig), juvenile aurochs (wild cattle) and possibly dog or wolf, was indicated by the animal spoors, which were found the same layer of peat as the human impressions.

Samples of the peat deposits on the beach were taken by auger. After preparation, microscopic investigation was undertaken of the pollen found in the layers. The results indicated that the footprints were made in a freshwater, open environment of grasses (including sedges), not far from trees. Charcoal indicated nearby woodland burning.

Carbon-14 dating gave a date of 5.300 – 4,990BC, which meant the footprints pre-dated the Bronze Age and were actually Mesolithic period. Human remains from this era have been found in the nearby Foxhole Cave.

To conclude, the foot prints were made by a group of adults and children, walking barefoot in an open environment of grass and marsh about 7,000 years ago. The presence of animals in the vicinity could suggest a hunting party tracking their prey in a landscape now lost to the sea.

The good news was that Rhiannon was awarded her doctorate earlier this year, based on the hard work she’d undertaken on Gower’s ‘footprints in the waves’.

Steve Monaghan