FOLLOWING
ANCIENT
FOOTSTEPS
F
ootsteps reach out in all
directions,
hundreds;
man, woman, child. It’s
an astonishing sight, al-
most hard to compre-
hend that we are stand-
ing where humans once stood almost
50,000 years ago.
A group of men ran across the wet
claypan, the footprints seem to sug-
gest they were in a hunt, chasing an
animal for food. A day or two either
side of the hunt, a group of women
also walked the area, playful children
ran about.
The footprints dried in the dry,
clear air. Winds blew sand across the
TRAVERSE 55
pan and the prints were covered. Re-
discovered, perhaps 20,000 years later
the prints represent some of the oldest
and largest collection of human foot-
prints anywhere on earth. The largest
collection of ice age footprints.
We’re standing in a harsh, unworld-
ly place. The landscape is of another
planet; sand dunes sweep across the
horizon, strange chimneylike struc-
tures poke their way toward the sky.
It wouldn’t be strange to see James T
Kirk approach from a distant outcrop.
There’s a strange air to the place,
the feeling of being watched, remind-
ed we are somewhere special.
Not far from here, a collection of