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Footprints from a vast dinosaur highway discovered in the UK
The UK’s biggest-ever site of dinosaur footprints has been discovered in a quarry in Oxfordshire.
Multiple trackways reveal the comings and goings of these ancient reptiles as they wandered across this area during the Jurassic Period.
Millions of years ago, dinosaurs once roamed across parts of what would become Britain.
Evidence of these wanderings was recently unearthed at Dewars Farm Quarry in Oxfordshire, where over 200 footprints have been discovered.
The impressions were made over 166 million years ago. They form five extensive trackways, with the longest stretching for more than 150 metres.
Four of the trackways were made by a species of gigantic, long-necked, herbivorous sauropod. The researchers believe the most likely candidate is Cetiosaurus, which was an 18-metre-long cousin of the more famous Diplodocus.
The fifth trackway was made by Megalosaurus, a ferocious carnivore that would have been around six to nine metres long. Megalosaurus was an agile hunter that walked on two legs and was the largest known predatory dinosaur in Jurassic Britain.
The footprints were first spotted by quarry worker Gary Johnson when he felt ‘unusual bumps’ a few metres apart while driving his digger. After contacting experts at the University of Birmingham and Oxford, a team of over 100 people worked to uncover the footprints during a week-long excavation in June 2024.
Scientists then built detailed 3D models of the site using drone photography to document the footprints in detail for further research.
The tracks are believed to be connected to a similar discovery made at another limestone quarry in the area. Around 40 sets of footprints were uncovered at nearby Ardley Quarry in 1997, with some of the trackways reaching 180 metres in length.
Professor Richard Butler, a Palaeobiologist at the University of Birmingham, said, “There is much more that we can learn from this site, which is an important part of our national heritage. Our 3D models will allow researchers to continue to study and make accessible this fascinating piece of our past for generations to come.”
The team uncovered five separate trackways, the longest stretched for more than 150 metres © University of Birmingham
What can we learn from dinosaur footprints?
Although we don’t have the remains of the animals that made the tracks, scientists can learn a lot about the lives of dinosaurs from the footprints they left behind.
Dr Susannah Maidment, a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum, says, “Trackways are important because they preserve fossilised behaviour, something that we are unable to get from the bones of an animal alone.”
“For example, fossilised trackways have indicated that some dinosaurs lived in herds, and speed of movement can also be roughly calculated. So tracks give us an insight into the ways extinct animals were living.”
“Individual footprints are quite commonly found in the UK, especially on the coasts around Sussex, the Isle of Wight and Yorkshire, but a whole trackway is much more significant, and this latest discovery in Oxfordshire is the longest ever found in the UK.”
The preservation of these latest fossils is so detailed that researchers can see how the mud was deformed as the dinosaurs trod across the soft ground.
The scientists have taken more than 20,000 images of the footprints. This will allow them to find out more about the lives of these reptiles, such as how they walked, how fast they were travelling, how large they were and whether they were alone or in a group.
The footprints were made by Cetiosaurus and Megalosaurus as they walked across a lagoon. © Mark Witton
Oxfordshire during the Jurassic
Today, Oxfordshire is famous for its green fields and rolling hills, but wind the clock back to the Middle Jurassic and it would have looked very different.
These dinosaurs would have been wandering across a muddy lagoon on the shores of a shallow sea in a more tropical climate.
Along with Cetiosaurus and Megalosaurus, other dinosaur remains found in the county include the plant-eating dinosaur Camptosaurus and the meat-eating dinosaur Eustreptospondylus. The land was also home to pterosaurs and small mammals.
But Oxfordshire’s most famous dinosaur find is a Megalosaurus jawbone, which in 1824 became the very first dinosaur to be formally described by scientists.
“Dinosaur bones have been known from the area for a long time, but their remains are highly fragmentary.” Says Susannah.
“The new trackways confirm that sauropods and the meat-eating theropods were living here at the time. Detailed study by palaeontologists and students at the University of Birmingham and Oxford Museum of Natural History will likely give us some fascinating insights into these dinosaurs, but they have yet to finish their work at the site.”
“It will be interesting to see how the tracks are preserved in the future. The previously discovered trackway found in a quarry nearby is now covered in landfill. It would be fantastic if this trackway could be preserved and opened to the public for all to see.”
