Ngorongoro Footprints' Find Officially Endorsed As Early Man Pointer

TANZANIA has officially approved and endorsed the new sets of fresh footprints, imprints believed to belong to earliest human beings who could have walked in Ngorongoro area nearly 4 million years ago.

Natural Resources and Tourism Minister Prof Jumanne Maghembe made the declaration at the Laetoli archaeological site within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) area over the weekend, declaring the new discovery as another milestone in boosting the country's historical, cultural and science based tourism.

"It places Tanzania at the forefront in human origin research, especially understanding the origin of upright posture and bidela gait through providing the only concrete evidence that our ancestors were fully walking upright 3.7 million years ago," said Prof Maghembe.

The latest historical hominid discovery is the result of painstaking work by two Tanzanian Scientists, Professor Fidelis Masao, a researcher and senior Lecturer in Archaeology, and his colleague, Dr Elgidius Ichumbaki, from the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM).

Explaining the discovery at the site, Prof Masao explained that, the footprints, located about 60 metres from the site, where similar humanoid prints, which were found by Dr Mary Leakey in 1976, indicate the former existence of other prehistoric animals, including extinct horses (Heparians), bears and dik-dik.

Experts led by a Tanzanian Archaeologist, Prof Charles Musiba, were still working in the area -- this time to trace the hominid footprint and track way -- to see where exactly the people who made them were travelling from and whether there could be more pre-historic human trails.

According to Dr Musiba, discovering humanoid trails is one thing while preserving the same was the most challenging thing, adding that if ultimate care wasn't taken, the prints may disappear faster than the time taken to expose them.

Photogrammetry onto the discovered ancient human train will follow. This is the science of making measurements from photographs that will be taken from the footprints.

The output of photogrammetry at Laetoli will produce maps, drawings, measurements, and eventually 3D models of the trails to make some real-world scene of the same.

The footprints that were discovered by Tanzanian experts are located in three areas; the first comprising of seven sets of bi-pedals while the second has four sets and the third with two sets of hominid trails of a person or persons, moving from Southward to Northern direction.

A layer below one of the sets reveals what could have been raindrops from heavy downpour 4 million years ago. So far, Tanzania is the only country in the world, which boats of the oldest marks of human beings in form of hominid footprints found in Laetoli area, of Ngorongoro.

These are reported to be 3.7 million years old. Neighbouring Kenya also reported to have discovered similar footprints a few years ago, but those ones apparently date back just 1.5 million years ago.

Tanzania also has other imprints at Lake Natron shores, in Ngorongoro District, dating back some 200,000 years. Other countries that so far have aged hominid footprints include Nicaragua, South-America, Korea and Australia. But all these countries feature trails that are recently timed between 20,000 and 30,000 years old.

The latest discovery in Ngorongoro reinforces the notion that all human beings in the world could have originated from Northern Tanzania, especially around areas striding Ngorongoro District.