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Our Burning Planet

Our Burning Planet

Citizen scientists and San trackers on the trail of our human origins along Southern Cape's stormy coast

Citizen scientists and San trackers on the trail of our human origins along Southern Cape's stormy coast
Jan De Fynck checks a trackway. (Photo: Don Pinnock)
Join Don Pinnock and a team of citizen scientists and Ju/’hoansi San trackers on an expedition along Africa's Cape South Coast to find ancient creatures of a drowned world and the origin of our species.

From the shores of what was once a vast (but now inundated) Paleo-Agulhas Plain to Blombos Cave where humans began experimenting with art, this three-part series explores how the first Homo sapiens survived a brutal Ice Age and thrived to become us. But can the team find a 100,000-year-old human footprint?

Part 1: Citizen science, master trackers and deciphering the sands of time

Aeolinate formations Strange aeolianite formations near Still Bay. (Photo: Don Pinnock)



Part 2: Blombos Cave and the birth of human intelligence

Blombos Cave Expedition organiser Clive Thomson on the path to Blombos Cave. (Photo: Simon Sephton)



Part 3: An undisclosed coast and the search for the magical human footmark

Ancient footprints, Jan De Fynck Jan De Fynck checks a trackway. (Photo: Don Pinnock)