Three trails of fossilized footprints in Italy could be the oldest such prints ever recovered from early humans, scientists say.

The footprints suggest the owners walked upright as they scrambled down the steep slopes of the Roccamonfina volcano in southern Italy.

Paolo Mietto of Padua University and his colleagues examined the footprints, which have been dated as 385,000 to 325,000 years old.

A trail (top) and set of footprintsCourtesy: Paolo Mieto & Marco Avanzini

One track of 27 footprints follows a zigzag pattern, presumably to make it easier to climb down the steep slope that inclined by up to 80 degrees.

Another one of the trails includes occasional handprints, evidence they used their hands to steady themselves on the way down.

The footprints are about 20 centimetres in length and 10 centimetres wide. Mietto's team figures the footprint makers were short, no taller than 1.5 metres or just under five feet.

Local residents referred to the footprints and fossilized animal tracks that were also preserved near the mountain as "devils' trails," because they were considered supernatural.

"In some of the prints, the impressions made by the heel and ball of the foot are clear, and there are even small depressions that can be interpreted as toe impressions," Mietto wrote in journal Nature on Wednesday.

Although it isn't clear who left the footprints, the researchers suggest they could be pre-Neanderthals, early members of the genus Homo.

The earliest footprints from hominids (members of the family of humans) date back to 3.5 million years ago in Tanzania. They were probably made by Australopithecus afarensis, of which the famous skeleton Lucy was a member.