Unearthed Footprints Reveal a Forgotten ‘Dinosaur Highway’ in Southern England

It all started last June when an employee at a limestone quarry in southeastern England experienced “strange protrusions” while extracting clay.

Now, a team exceeding 100 researchers from the Universities of Birmingham and Oxford have concluded that the enigmatic protrusions identified at Dewars Farm Quarry in Oxfordshire were indeed dinosaur footprints dating back to the Middle Jurassic epoch, approximately 166 million years prior.

Experts in paleontology indicate that the roughly 200 footprints uncovered along five distinct paths provide new perspectives on the size and speed of certain dinosaurs.

“Based on our speed estimates, all of the dinosaurs were likely walking instead of running,” remarked Kirsty Edgar, a micropalaeontology professor at the University of Birmingham involved with the discovery site.

Edgar shared with NPR that the habitat for the dinosaurs during that era “was likely lagoon-like, resembling some aspects of the Florida Keys today.”

Researchers revealed five trackways hidden in the muck, with the longest extending nearly 500 feet. Four of the paths were created by long-necked herbivorous sauropods, believed to be the colossal 60-foot, two-ton Cetiosaurus, while the fifth path was created by a meat-eating Megalosaurus.

The Megalosaurus, a formidable predator measuring 30 feet in length, is renowned for its unique large three-toed feet equipped with claws. It is also the first dinosaur ever to receive a scientific name, designated in 1824 by Oxford geologist William Buckland. Buckland’s extraordinary fossil find initiated what has become over 200 years of dinosaur research.

One sector of the excavation site displayed the Megalosaurus and sauropod tracks overlapping, prompting further inquiries regarding the interaction, if any, between the two species.

“Researchers have been aware of and have investigated Megalosaurus longer than any other dinosaur on Earth, and yet these recent revelations demonstrate that there remains new evidence of these creatures yet to be uncovered,” commented Emma Nicholls, a vertebrate palaeontologist affiliated with the Oxford Museum of Natural History.

Each Megalosaurus print measured approximately 25 inches in length, with a stride of about 8.8 feet. Based on those dimensions, scientists estimate the dinosaur moved at a speed of roughly 3 miles per hour, akin to the typical walking pace of an adult human. They suspect the sauropods traveled at a comparable speed.

Tracks were initially found in the vicinity in 1997, when limestone quarry workers stumbled upon over 40 sets of dinosaur footprints, with certain trackways stretching almost 600 feet long. The British government designated the Oxfordshire site as one of the most significant dinosaur track locations in the world, with the discovery offering crucial evidence regarding the types of dinosaurs that inhabited the U.K. during the Middle Jurassic Period.

During the recent excavation, researchers documented more than 20,000 photographs of the 200 footprints.