In 1978, on the eastern shore of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya, a geologist noticed a deep rounded dent in the rock while her colleagues dug a trench to examine the sediment layers.
A tight group moving with that kind of deliberate purpose looks surprisingly like a coordinated tracking party or a strategic scouting mission. Researchers usually default to basic foraging to explain these trackways. We rarely give ancient populations credit for complex intent.
I’m still as fascinated by these “digs” as I was when first reading those original Nat Geo articles decades ago.
Besides traveling in a group for safety, do they have any sense of what else this group might have been doing? Hunting? Migrating?
A tight group moving with that kind of deliberate purpose looks surprisingly like a coordinated tracking party or a strategic scouting mission. Researchers usually default to basic foraging to explain these trackways. We rarely give ancient populations credit for complex intent.
True. Very complex to thrive in such an environment.
2002 I went to Oz for the total solar eclipse (and 3 weeks in South OZ glorying in fine wine and fine steak).
We witnessed in the outback - Ochre Cliffs, north of the Flinders range. And spectacular it was.
But while there I understood that the Aborigines ability to live in such conditions was extraordinary. We wouldn't last long, that's for sure.
Thanks. Fascinating article.
PS. Finest wine known to humanity? (to quote Withnail And I) is Penfolds Grange Hermitage. No contest