Cast of the Laetoli footprints from the Collection of the Natural History Museum Vienna

Cast of the Laetoli footprints
Found in 1978; location: Tanzania
3D print with a filament based on a 3D scan
40 x 360 x 4,5 cm
Produced by the Frankfurter Kunstverein for the exhibition The Presence of Absence: 3D scans created by the 3D-Lab of the Natural History Museum Vienna, 3D printing by studio gilgen and manual preparation by the Senckenberg Museum of Natural History
Courtesy Natural History Museum Vienna

3.6 million years ago, Australopithecus afarensis—two adults and a child—crossed the African savannah near the Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania. The tracks of these early human ancestors are the first imprints of individuals walking upright side by side in the infinity of prehistoric landscapes.

The ephemeral traces were preserved by a natural phenomenon. The Sadiman volcano had erupted eighteen times in quick succession. Savannah animals, including australopithecines, crossed the area on the banks of the Garusi River after the volcanic ash had cooled following an eruption. Shortly beforehand, the landscape must have been devastated by the eruption and looked like a lunar landscape. Hot winds blew and ash veiled the sky. The passing creatures left traces in the ash, which was moistened by the sudden onset of rain. Raindrops left tiny craters in the dusty surface of the earth. The sun that followed the rain turned the ash and the traces of the creatures into hardened tuff. When the volcano erupted again immediately afterwards, the tuff was sealed like concrete and covered with a new layer of ash. As a result of these events, the traces of the creatures were fossilised and have survived to this day.

The imprints from Laetoli open a unique window into the past. They enable researchers to investigate an important chapter in human evolution. At the same time, they unlock spaces of imagination. Two parallel tracks. The large one must have been made by two adult hominins walking one behind the other. One stepped into the footprints of the other, as apes and Homo sapiens sometimes do. Next to their footprints are those of smaller feet. Perhaps their child, walking close to its parents. The track indicates a pause. An interruption that suggests that the child must have stopped while walking, perhaps to look back.

The footprints differ only slightly from those of people today. The balls of the feet and toes exert pressure on the ground when walking. The cast of Laetoli’s footprints shown here was produced as a digital data set by the Natural History Museum Vienna for the exhibition at the Frankfurter Kunstverein. A handmade replica was produced for the exhibition by Prof Daniel Gilgen (Trier University of Applied Sciences) and Olaf Vogel (geological taxidermist at the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt).

The Laetoli area is a key site in palaeoanthropology. Since the 1970s, new teams of researchers have found tens of thousands of fossilised bone remains and traces of over twenty animal species, as well as footprints of seventy individuals of human hominins in the millions of years old layers. Time has created layer upon layer of sediment and volcanic material, which in some places is more than 130 metres thick.

When a team of researchers led by Mary Leakey found bone fragments and footprints of the early human species Australopithecus afarensis, which includes the world-famous Lucy, it was a sensation. Palaeoanthropologists carefully uncovered the footprints several times over the decades. They documented them with increasingly sophisticated technologies, most recently with 3D laser scanners and with the help of digital forensic methods.

The first direct evidence of one of our ancestors walking upright was found. The latest investigations revealed that some of Laetoli’s footprints came from another, possibly still unknown, hominin species.

We would like to thank
Dr Margit Berner (Natural History Museum Vienna)
Apl Prof Ottmar Kullmer (Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt)
Prof Daniel Gilgen (Trier University of Applied Sciences)
Olaf Vogel (Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt)