A moment in deep time
In 2003, a young Mutthi Mutthi Aboriginal woman named Mary Pappin Jr. was exploring a claypan in Mungo National Park when she spotted the first of what would become the largest collection of Pleistocene human footprints in the world. Dating from 19,000 to 23,000 years ago, during the last ice age, the site contains hundreds of fossilized human footprints left by adults, adolescents, and children. At that time, the now-arid landscape was a system of freshwater lakes teeming with fish and mussels. People walked across moist clay, which then dried and hardened. Wind-blown sand quickly covered the tracks, preserving them for millennia until erosion brought them back to light.
The discovery shows the lives of these early Australians. The site is part of the Willandra Lakes Region World Heritage Area, an area already known for the discovery of Mungo Man and Mungo Lady, 42,000-year-old human remains that are among the oldest in Australia. The footprints, however, capture behavior, a snapshot of daily life. Analysis shows at least 22 distinct trackways, some stretching for 20 meters, crossing a 700-square-meter area.