May
14
/ 2020
Scientists reveal a volume of new data about the group of hunter-gatherers who left their prehistoric footprints in mud. In the shadow of the Ol Doinyo Lengai volcano in Tanzania, the Engare Sero mudflat preserves footprints laid down by two groups of men, women, and children between 5,800 and 19,100 years ago. A 2016 Science Alert article detailed the discovery of at least 408 individual human prints, which are highly valued by archaeologists because compared to most other fossils they offer immediate ecological and behavioral contexts. In 2018, Cynthia Liutkus-Pierce of Appalachian State University in North Carolina, the geologist who led the first study of the site with support from the National Geographic Society, told National Geographic: “These are Homo
