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.
Reading the ancient tracks
Scientific analysis of the footprints reveals a detailed story. Researchers used formulas originally developed for the 3.6-million-year-old Laetoli footprints in Tanzania to calculate the height, gait, and speed of the Mungo people. The tracks show different groups of people engaged in various activities. One set of tracks indicates a family group with four children and an adult walking at speeds between 3.7 and 5.1 km/hr. Other tracks show groups of hunters.
One trackway stands out. It was made by a single, tall individual running at an estimated speed of 37 kilometers per hour (23 miles per hour), a velocity comparable to a modern Olympic sprinter. This person was likely hunting. The tracks are so well-preserved that researchers could see how mud squelched between their toes. Another trackway appears to have been made by a one-legged man hopping quickly without a crutch. The discovery and analysis of the footprints involved close collaboration with Indigenous trackers and the traditional owners of the land: the Paakantji, Ngyiampaa, and Mutthi Mutthi peoples.