2008-11-13 10:28:10
By Beatrice Philemon
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) is all out
with a typical novelty of conserving ancient human footprints to
boost up its appeal to tourists.
About 24 percent of all tourists visiting Northern Circuit
attractions stop at Ngorongoro Crater, something which makes
this innovation more useful.
Ozias Sam Kileo, Head of Station, in the Ministry of Natural
Resources and Tourism, Antiquities Unit said the government has
already built up an exclusive exhibition area for conserving
ancient human footprints.
History records that NCAA is the site of today`s Neanderthal
Man, the Zinjanthropus.
As far back as 1959, the Zinj skull was discovered by Dr. Leakey
at the Olduvai Gorge. Zinjanthropus is believed to have lived
1.8 million years ago.
That belief gained more credence in the 1970\'s, when footprints
of animals and early hominids dating back 3.5 million years were
found by Mary Leakey at Laetoli some 45 kms South of Olduvai
Gorge.
Being the largest intact Crater and the second largest extinct
in the world, the preservation of the footprints would add up to
the spectacular concentration of wildlife.
Ngorongoro was an active volcano some eight million years ago
whose cone collapsed, leaving a Crater.
Preservation of the footprints underpins Ngorongoro as the
Eighth Wonder of the World and Eden of Africa.
Right now, the pavilion of the ancient footprints is open for
both local and foreign visitors at the new Laetoli�, he said.
Laetoli area lies only about 25km to the Southwest of Oldupai
Gorge.
Construction of the pavilion was undertaken by the National
Museaum of Tanzania.
According to him Laetoli is a cast of the track way with an
accompanying exhibition that describes the discovery and
conservation of the hominid footprints.
Furthermore strata at Laetoli have provided both hominid
footprints and fossil remains dated at about 3.5millions years
before the advent of stone tools and the early hominids of
Olduvai lived adjacent to saline lake like Lake Natron, whereas
the Laetoli Hominids occupied a savannah environment rather like
the Serengeti Plain.
However, lack of vehicles is making access to remote Laetoli
areas to be difficult.
Hominid fossils seen at Olduvai Gorge show the evolution of
human kind over a two million years time span and provide a
sense of man�s recent emergence in the world as modern humans.
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SOURCE:
Guardian
