One of the more famous archaeological sites is located in Laetoli. Laetoli is in Tanzania, which is located in eastern Africa. The site is well-known for the footprints found in the ground at Laetoli. In 1974, Mary Leakey, a well-know archaeologist, started excavating the site at Laetoli. This searching lasted almost five years, when in 1978, Mary found three sets of fossilized footprints preserved in the ground. There were approximately seventy footprints in two parallel trails about thirty meters long.
These footprints were believed to have been approximately 3.6 million years old. Long ago, a layer of volcanic ash fell over the area of Laetoli, and shortly later three Australopithecus afarensis walked through the ash, leaving their footprints. After studying these footprints, Mary Leakey came to the conclusion that the prints were made by Australopithecus afarensis that had been walking bipedally. This raised questions about the evolution of bipedalism. It was believed that the first hominids to walk bipedally were Homo erectus.
After thoroughly studying the footprints, in 1979, the excavation site was reburied, so the footprints would be preserved. After the site had been covered for some time, vegetation started to regrow. Many researches believed that this vegetation, especially the tree roots, would cause damage to the footprints if the roots got deep enough. So, finally in 1995-96, the Getty Conservation Institute Tanzanian team reopened the site. The team wanted to re-excavate the tracks and then find a better way to preserve the footprints. The GCIT team wanted to start excavating the southern section first, where the vegetation was the densest. Fortunately, the trees had developed shallow roots rather than deep roots because of the hardness of the tuff. Most of the footprints in this area were in good condition. At this point, the GCIT team repaired any holes that were created by the root removal. The condition of the site was recorded by taking eight-by-ten-inch photographs of the footprints. Others also made new contour maps of the tracks, which are far more accurate than the maps made by Mary Leakey’s team. After all of the documentation was done, the tracks was reburied under five different layers of sand and soil. This same entire process of re-excavation and preservation was done to the northern section of the tracks in 1996.
Laetoli: Footprints in the Past
Written By: Katie Bohr
Agnew, Neville. “Preserving the Laetoli Footprints.” Scientific American 279(1998): 51-54.
“The Footprints at Laetoli.” The Getty Conservation Institute http://www.getty.edu/conservation/resources/newsletter/10_1/7 Nov. 1999.
“Laetoli.” Vassar College (4 Sept. 1999) http://vassun.vassar.edu/~aavalenz/evolution/SiteMap.html 7 Nov. 1999.