NATIONAL NEWS - An article published on Wednesday 28 March in the open-access journal Scientific Reports, by an international team of researchers led by Dr Charles Helm, draws attention to a Late Pleistocene hominin tracksite identified in 2016 in coastal aeolianite rocks on the Cape south coast of South Africa. 

Up to forty hominin tracks are evident in the form of natural casts on the ceiling and side walls of a ten-metre long cave. 

A number of individuals, probably Homo sapiens, made the tracks while moving down a dune surface. 

The tracks are thought to have been made approximately 90,000 years ago, when the shoreline would have been about 2 km distant.

The narrow confines of the cave, often with a space of 50 cm or less between floor and ceiling, made for significant challenges in documentation. 

However, thousands of photographs of the track-bearing surface were taken. 

These were used to develop 3D photogrammetric models by Dr Richard McCrea in the Peace Region Palaeontology Research Centre in Tumbler Ridge, Canada. 

Combined with a track map, this digital data will make possible the creation of exact replicas of the track-bearing surface.

While the observed tracks are vulnerable to erosion though high tides and storm surges, further tracks may be exposed in future. 

This is the first reported hominin tracksite in the world from this time period.

Thousands of photographs of the track-bearing surface were taken.

It adds to the sparse global record of early hominin tracks, and represents the largest and best preserved archive of Late Pleistocene hominin tracks found to date.

Although living in Canada, Dr Charles Helm is originally from Great Brak River.

For further information please contact Dr Charles Helm: helm.c.w@gmail.com.

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