Africa’s Biggest Collection of Ancient Human Footprints Has Been Found

Hundreds of fossilized impressions are providing a glimpse into ancient human behavior

Science News | May 14, 2020 | Bruce Bower

People walked across a muddy layer of volcanic debris . . . Dating of a thin rock layer that partly overlaps footprint sediment narrows the age range for the footprints to between roughly 12,000 and 10,000 years ago, the team says.

At Engare Sero, Hatala’s team analyzed foot impression sizes, distances between prints and which way prints pointed. One collection of tracks was made by a group of 17 people walking southwest across the landscape, the researchers found. Comparisons with modern human footprint measurements indicate that this group consisted of 14 women, two men and one young boy.

The women may have been foraging for food, while a few males visited or accompanied them, the researchers speculate. Some present-day hunter-gatherers, including Tanzania’s Hadza people, form largely female food-gathering groups.

In another set of six tracks, the footprints point northeast. Those tracks probably weren’t made by people traveling in a group. Instead, the impressions suggest that two women and a man had ambled along leisurely, a woman and a man had walked briskly, and another woman had run across the area, the researchers say.

Any guesses as to what exactly was going on?