France, Feb. 11 -- Archaeologists in Morocco have unearthed more than 80 human footprints dating back some 100,000 years. They're believed to be the oldest in both North Africaand the southern Mediterranean.

The footprints, probably left by five Homo sapiens including children, were discovered on the coast of Larache, a city 90 kilometres south of Tangier.

The archaeologists -from Morocco, Spain, France, and Germany-said the footprints were some of the world's best-preserved human traces.

Their reseach was published in scientific journal Nature in January.

"We do have traces that tell us that, at the time, homo sapiens moved along the coast potentially to seek out marine resources,"Mouncef Sedrati, geomorphologist at France's Universi...