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South Africa, Our Burning Planet

A secret coast and the search for ancient footprints

A secret coast and the search for ancient footprints
One of the trackers compares his foot to the footprint we found – but science still needs to confirm the imprint is of human origin. (Photo: Don Pinnock)
Don Pinnock
By Don Pinnock
12 Nov 2024
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On an un-named headland above a beach on the Cape south coast we find tracks everywhere, but will we find the holy grail of our adventure: human footprints?

Read Part 1 and Part 2


It’s time to pack and decamp. There’s another section of coast that paleoanthropologist Jan De Vynck wants to explore, us citizen scientists in tow. (To protect what we find, we can’t yet tell you where we went.) 

Before sunrise the next day we’re on an aeolianite clifftop. With our newfound pattern recognition skills there seem to be tracks everywhere. If we’re going to find human footprints, it’s going to be here. There’s a cave down on the beach where there’s evidence of archaeological material. If there were humans and dunes…

There are tracks of elephants, maybe hyena and a tantalising slide-stop of possibly a human descending a dune. The three Ju/'hoansi San trackers, Steven Kxunta, /uce Nǂamce and #oma Daqm, are not sure about the imprint and much discussion follows. We don’t understand a word but the musicality of their clicking language is enthralling.


Who are the Ju/'hoansi San Trackers?
The Ju/'hoansi San are among the last true hunter-gatherers in Southern Africa, renowned for their exceptional tracking skills. Living in the remote Nyae Nyae area in Namibia, they hold onto a rich culture that includes a unique click language, and a deep connection to their ancestral lands. Their ability to read nature’s subtle cues makes them master trackers.


 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSf_ywuJoLE

The long trek


Ancient footprints, strandloper Jan De Fynck prepares a trackway for photographic scanning. (Photo: Don Pinnock)



Strandloper, Ancient footprints After too much looking you see tracks everywhere. (Photo: Don Pinnock)



Are we standing on the launching pad of our species into the rest of the world? Science is about discovery and contestation and there will be those who will challenge how humans emerged from Africa – and from southern Africa in particular. But the story viewed from the southern Cape is compelling. 

Two-legged apes had come before: Australopithecus, Homo habilis and erectus. Homo heidelbergensis left Africa and spawned Homo neanderthalensis. 

But the rich Cape refuge in a frozen world produced a social and physical transition to something special, a species that could exploit the protein- and omega-rich seashores right up Africa and along the Arabian and Indian coasts. They could construct craft to island hop to Australia and advance into Asia, Europe and the Americas. 

It would take thousands of years with many setbacks. Eccentric climate change during the Pleistocene ice age would not treat them kindly. But they had big brains, they collaborated and persevered where others died out. Somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, they invented abstract language. One of their descendants is writing this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVRcj24_dT0

Last push


Ancient footprints, slip-skid A possible human slip-skid down a dune face. (Photo: Don Pinnock)



Final day. We need slanting sunlight to enhance the shadows but there are clouds. Oh well, we’ll try our luck. We take stock of what we found yesterday, especially the skid site, then move to an area beyond, which we have not yet surveyed. To anyone watching us plodding around staring at the ground we would seem deranged or stoned out of our minds. Around 15 human trackways older than 40,000 years have been found on the Cape coast. Would we find the next one?

There’s a shout: “Here.” I can’t remember who. We gather round what seems to be a perfect footprint: indentation, toes and a ridge where the displacement from the indentation went. #oma takes off a shoe and places his foot in it. A perfect fit. There is no doubt to me it’s a human footprint. There’s a sort of awed silence as we ponder the magic of a person with the oldest and richest DNA in the world placing his foot in the footprint of a human from the very beginning of our species. 

That afternoon Jan will take dozens of photographs to make up a multi-layered photogrammetry image and get samples for optically stimulated luminescence dating. It’s not a footprint until science declares it to be. But we know it is, not because we want it to be, but because it’s so visibly obvious.

We may never know what the daily pattern of that far-off person’s life looked and felt like, what they wore and how exactly they used the delicate tools they made. They could never know they were a species that would eventually live in almost every corner of the planet, fly to the moon and capture footprints on a pocket cellphone. 

But in some almost mystical way #oma’s foot in their footprint makes the connection for us. Our small team’s personal journey of discovery ends here, but for the person who made that footprint, the human journey across the planet was just beginning.

Wherever we’ve ended up, we’re all survivors of a wild and perilous journey. But all over the world, we’re all Africans under the skin. DM

Ancient footprints One of the trackers compares his foot to the footprint we found – but science still needs to confirm the imprint is of human origin. (Photo: Don Pinnock)



This expedition was supported by the Discovery Wilderness Trust.

The Discovery Wilderness Trust is a Public Benefit Organisation. Its objectives include preserving and promoting the ancient tracking skills of the marginalised Ju/'hoansi community and providing wilderness experiences to the next generation of Southern Africans. Anyone interested in participating in the next citizen science trail, joining the Master Trackers as they scour the Cape south coast shoreline for further discoveries, should contact Trustees Jan Glazewski and Clive Thompson at [email protected]

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