South Africa - World's oldest footprints

(25 Jun 1998) T/I: 10:26:46


South African scientists breathed a sign of relief on Tuesday (23/06) as the world's oldest human footprints were successfully plucked from a dune rock in the Langebaan Lagoon and ferried by helicopter and truck to a conservation workshop. They're due to be moved to the South Africa Museum in Capetown at the end of the week. For 117,000 years the tiny female footprints lay undiscovered on the shores of Langebaan Lagoon about 75 miles (120 kilometers) north of Cape Town. But since their discovery in 1995, the delicate tracks have suffered at the hands of modern man, and were also vulnerable to the rain, wind and waves. In a bid to save the prints, geologists and engineers worked last weekend to cut them out in a single block of stone. The footprints, 8 1/2 inches (20 centimeters) long, were made by a person who measured about 5-foot-3 inches (160 centimeters). This small stature led scientists to theorize they were made by a young woman. The fossil was dubbed "Eve" because of the growing belief that humans had their origin in South or South-Western Africa.
Although much older footprints of ape-like human ancestors
exist, the tracks are the oldest prints made by anatomically
modern humans, indistinguishable from people living today.


SHOWS:

CAPETOWN, SOUTH AFRICA - 23/06

VS technical team consolidating porous rock in which the prints are embedded;
team drilling;
fitting of rock into sealed protective aluminium case;
VS showing airlifting and removal operation;
SOT (in English) with Dr Dave Roberts, council for geoscience, saying: "We know that these footprints must go into the cliff, they were formed on a block that had fallen away from the cliff. When that block fell away, that's when the overlying sandstone fell off and exposed the footprints."
CA airlifting operation;
SOT (in English) with Mike Van Weiringen, consulting geologist, saying: "If it was in a safer position it could well have been protected. Then, probably it would have been a better idea just to have kept it where it is."
WS sea zoom in to lagoon.

1.30

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