Re: On the Heels of Dinosaurs
by Glen J. Kuban (1979-1996)

Kuban: "Around 1910, another local youth named Charlie Moss and his brother Grady were fishing in the Paluxy River itself when they came across a trail of three-toed dinosaur tracks on a limestone shelf, along with a series of even more curious, oblong footprints (Andrus, 1975). Described by Charlie as "giant man tracks," these large, elongate footprints (typically 15-18 inches long) were as yet unknown to geologists, but evidently were soon accepted as genuine human footprints by many of the townspeople. For many years most locals seemed to regard these tracks as minor curiosities--evidently not realizing that the immense scientific implications of finding human and dinosaur footprints in the same rocks. Indeed, if confirmed, such a find would dramatically contradict the standard geologic timetable, which holds that dinosaurs became extinct about 65 million years ago, whereas the first human remains are only a few million years old (a gap of over 60 million years). Moreover, the track beds in Glen Rose are now assigned by mainstream geologists to the lower part of the Cretaceous period, at or near the Aptian/Albian boundary, dated at about 113 million years (Young, 1974; Bergan and Pittman, 1990)."

Kuban: "Later in 1986 one of the more reputable creationist groups, Students for Origins Research, invited me to publish my findings in their quarterly periodical Origins Research, including maps and photos of the Taylor Site evidence (Kuban, 1986a). Shortly thereafter the anti-creationist journal Creation/ Evolution requested from me and published a similar summary (Kuban, 1986b). In order to avoid any misunderstanding about my motives, I included an "afterward" in the latter article stating that my purpose was "not to attack creationism but to help set the record straight on the true nature of the Paluxy evidence."


Kuban interprets all of the Paluxy "man tracks" as falling into one or more of the following categories:

1.    Metatarsal and metapodial impressions of the heels and soles of dinosaur feet, where the front toes either do not make an impression, or are only faintly preserved.

2.    Too poorly preserved to be identified with certainty as anything other than a poorly preserved dinosaur track.

3.    Erosional features and random irregularities of the rock surface.

4.    Some type of unusual dinosaur track with elongate "heels."

5.    Excavated or modified footprints through the cleaning up of depressions as Baugh attempted to "uncover" toes.

6.    Variable dinosaur tracks: A single dinosaur was shown to make track types that ranged from typical tridactyl tracks to elongate prints that resembled the so-called humanoid tracks elsewhere.

7.    Contemporaneous secondary sediment infillings of some tracks later became eroded to produce pseudo-humanoid impressions within a larger dinosaur track.

8.    Variations in dinosaur locomotion and behavior account for the difference in trackways and the occurrence of "man tracks."

Thus our investigation focusses on the question of all or none: Are any of the Paluxy trackways or footprints similar enough to human footprints to consider an alternative interpretation?  Keep in mind, all footprint impressions in a trackway must be explainable.  If even one of them in a variable trackway resembles a dinosaur metatarsal or tridactyl footprint, then all those footprints were likely produced by that same animal.  Only when it can be shown that two trackways have become superimposed, and one trackway is of a type consistently different from the other trackway, can an alternative interpretation be considered.  Secondary infilling and differential erosion must also be considered, along with the position of any large toes on a humanoid footprint (Kuban found that the large toe on a so-called humanoid print was on the outside rather than the inside, disqualifying the print from further consideration as having been produced by a human).

The Burdick humanoid footprint stands out as either one of the greatest hoaxes of all time (Kuban concludes that it was carved, while Patton rebuts that interpretation with additional evidence), or as the best evidence yet that humanoid footprints do indeed exist somewhere at Glen Rose, TX.  My conclusion: The evidence is inconclusive. More digging is required.

Bruce Cornet