The footprints of the "Doñana" are Neanderthal and not of an earlier lineage, according to a new study on the tracks of this species.

The study dates the oldest tracks left by the hominids and the tools they used at 150,000 years, as opposed to the 300,000 years claimed by an earlier study.

A difference of a few thousand years may seem trivial in the millions of years of prehistory. But a date of approx

150,000 years in hominid footprints may force us to change some pages of this period and even the chronology of human evolution. Such a discrepancy has occurred in the hominid footprints found in El Asperillo, a coastal enclave in Huelva located between the beaches of Mazagón and Matalascañas. A study published in Scientific Reports claimed that the age of these footprints was 295,800 years, so they could have been left by an earlier lineage of Neanderthals and, according to the authors, represent "a crucial record for understanding human occupations in Europe in the Pleistocene" . A new dating study published in Quaternary Science Reviews puts the age of the footprints at 151,100 years, confirms they are Neanderthals (the oldest) and contains remains of stone tools used by the latter to process the flesh of the giant animals that lived in this environment, now the Doñana Natural Park, where the hominids temporarily went to hunt.