And now for another in a series of reports on fossilized footprints in Seogwipo that the Cultural Heritage Administration calls elephant tracks, despite counter claims by experts. While some scholars argue the footprints date back 15,000 years, others disagree. Mike Laidman has the details.
Are they elephant tracks or not? At the core of the dispute is the age of these fossilised footprints.

[slug]
Academics divided over age of footprints

Scholars remain divided over when the footprints were made, making it difficult to confirm which animal left the tracks.

[slug]
CHA dates prints to 15,000 years ago

There are two schools of thought regarding them; some claim that the footprints were made at least 15 thousand years ago, others date them as recently as 3 to 4 thousand years.

The Cultural Heritage Administration is following the former claim, that the tracks were made 15 thousand years ago.

But a group of academics who took part in the initial excavation process conducted some follow-up research of their own and concluded that the tracks could be much older. Based on soil analysis near the track site, they say the footprints could have been made 20 to 25 thousand years ago.

[INTERVIEW]
Kim Kyeong-su / Professor, Chinju National University of Education
Carbon isotopes are normally used to measure the age of a fossil. We extracted a sample from right next to the track site and sent it to New Zealand for analysis. The layers above and below the footprints were found to be between 20,000 and 25,000 years old.
김경수 / 진주교대 교수
탄소동위원소를 이용해 연대 측정을 하게 되는데 발자국 화석 산지
바로 옆에서 샘플을 채취해 뉴질랜드에 보낸 결과 발자국 화석 층이 ///
포함돼 있는 위 아래로 대략 나온 연대값이 2만년에서 2만5천년이죠.

But some scholars still disagree.

The basis for their counter-argument is that the track site contains traces of volcanic ash. They say that when nearby Songaksan (송악산) Mountain erupted, volcanic ash covered the site.

[interview]
Ahn Woong-san / Researcher, Jeju World Natural Heritage Center
The footprints can be found on a sedimentary layer on top of Songaksan Mountain. We can therefore say that sediment was deposited after volcanic activity at the mountain.
안웅산 / 세계유산·한라산연구원 학예연구사
송악산 응회암층이 있고 그 위에 사람 발자국이 찍혀 있는 퇴적층이 있는거죠. 그렇기 때문에 송악산 화산활동 이후 상부에 있는 물질이 ///
퇴적됐다고 보시면 되겠습니다.

[camera]
Kim Seung-cheol

Songaksan Mountain is known to have erupted 3 to 4 thousand years ago, and the footprints were probably made after this time.

[interview]
Sohn Young-gwan / Gyeongsang National University
Upon examining the layers on which the footprints were made, volcanic ash from Songaksan Mountain was discovered. In other words, the footprints were made after Songaksan Mountain erupted.
손영관 / 경상대 교수
발자국이 찍혀 있는 지층을 이루고 있는 물질을 화학 분석해서 송악산에서 날아온 화산재라는 것이 밝혀졌고,
///
바꿔 말하면 송악산 분출 이후 사람 발자국이 만들어졌다고
볼 수 있습니다.

[reporter]
Mike Laidman

Further research on the site and the prints is needed to settle the academic dispute and find the true formation period of these fossilised footprints.

Mike Laidman, KCTV.