What could be more likely to generate Deep Thoughts than finding 800,000-year-old footprints on the beach? The footprint Robinson Crusoe found may have had more immediate application to his daily life, but this could also stir the imagination.
In case you missed the story, here is Sudeshna Chowdhury’s version at the Christian Science Monitor.
“The earliest known humans in northern Europe have left evidence of their existence on an English beach, in the form of footprints.
“A team of scientists from the British Museum, Britain’s Natural History Museum, and Queen Mary University of London have discovered a series of 800,000-year-old footprints left by early humans in the ancient estuary muds at the Happisburgh site, an excavation site known for preservation of sediments containing ancient flora and fauna, in Britain’s Norfolk Coast.
“Scientists spotted at least 12 clear footprints, Nick Ashton, a curator at the British Museum, told the Monitor.
” ‘At first we weren’t sure what we were seeing,’ says Dr. Ashton, ‘but as we removed any remaining beach sand and sponged off the seawater, it was clear that the hollows resembled prints, perhaps human footprints, and that we needed to record the surface as quickly as possible before the sea eroded it away.’ ” More here.
I think these footprints call for a poem. Send me one? Even a haiku would be lovely.
Update 2/12/14
We who still know fear,
Thousands of years on, would keep
Your print from the tide.
Photo: Martin Bates
Area A at Happisburgh with detail of footprint surface. Scientists discovered a series of 800,000-year-old footprints left by early humans in Norfolk Coast, UK
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
Three poems (no Haiku’s)
A limerick:
He went to the shore to clear his mind
and left us a mark of ancient mankind
For he sat down in the mire
‘cause nowhere was drier
And recorded a print of his enormous behind
Traveling:
I like to leave
My prints behind
I like to leave
Them neatly aligned
I like to leave them
By the sea
I like to leave them
Near a tree
I dig my toes
Into the sand
I leave my mark
Where I stand
I run, I hop,
I dance, I walk
Through peat and mud
And by the loch
By the sea
Or near a tree
Along a lake
Like crumbs from cake
Ten little pigs and two big heels
I roll ‘cross the land, my feet as my wheels!
Artist:
I leave my prints forever in clay
Hollows in the mud, a fossil ballet
There’ll be a day when I’m long dead
Mineral impressionism of the life I led
I’m an artist, a bipedal calligrapher
My paths and my feet leave my signature
What a treat to have three whole poems about the ancient footprints! Thanks so much, KM! Can’t wait for you to assign poetic updates in our next go-round at work. Your example will be hard to beat. … Meanwhile, I’ve been wondering if people ever do poem mixtapes or mashups. For the topic at hand, I could see starting off with a bit of Wm Blake and Matthew Arnold, say, like this: “And did those feet in ancient time” “by this distant northern sea” …