And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time

From Over 250 Neanderthal Footprints Reveal Clues to the Ancient Humans’ Social Lives by Nathaniel Scharping. Fascinating.

At first glimpse, it looks like the Neanderthals might have just vanished around the corner. Their footprints are engraved in the soft oceanside rock, like photographic negatives of their passage, seemingly ready to be swept away by the nearby ocean.

In reality, the impressions are around 80,000 years old, pressed into ancient sediments by a group of ancient humans and preserved by blowing sands. These footprints, 257 in all, were discovered in Normandy, France, and are the focus of a new analysis by researchers. They are revealing fresh insights into how Neanderthals lived, filling in gaps that bones and artifacts can’t speak to.

[snip]

The scientists looked at the size and shape of the footprints to estimate how old the individual who left it was. Previous research has laid down fairly reliable comparisons between Neanderthal foot size and height, and the researchers found that the majority of the prints were likely from children or adolescents. One of the footprints came from a child as young as two, while another belonged to an adult male who may have stood over six feet tall.

The new collection of footprints, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, begins to highlight aspects of Neanderthal lives that have been more difficult to understand. The presence of so many young individuals is new to scientists, as the other rare instances where researchers have identified cohesive groups of Neanderthals have largely comprised adults. Instead, the group passing through 80,000 years ago was predominantly children or young adults, with just a few mature individuals mixed in. While it can be difficult to say whether different footprints came from the same individual or not, they estimate the group’s size at between 10 and 14 people.

The presence of so many children hints at new social dynamics among the ancient humans, ones that researchers will need further research to better understand. Was the presence of many children in a group common for Neanderthals? Or was this group an outlier?

Calls to mind Lonfellow's poem (emphasis added.)

A Psalm of Life
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.