Four hundred footprints in hardened ash
On the southern shore of Lake Natron, a mudflow from Ol Doinyo Lengai set like concrete over a surface that people and animals had walked across. What it preserved is, in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority’s description, Tanzania’s largest human fossil footprint site and the largest yet discovered on the African continent.
The NCAA gives the site as covering 300 square metres, discovered in 2006, containing over 400 hominid and animal footprints including zebra and bovid, and dating between 6,000 and 19,000 years ago. The tracks represent the distinct paths of at least twenty different individuals, and the authority describes them as one of the country’s best-preserved records of anatomically modern Homo sapiens.
Research since 2009 has been led by Cynthia Liutkus-Pierce of Appalachian State University, with the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program research scientist Briana Pobiner among the team. Their finding, as the NCAA reports it, is that the prints were left by a group of mostly adult females travelling together.
The name, and the two sites it covers
The spellings Engare Sero, Engaresero and Ngare Sero all appear for the same area, and two entirely different attractions carry them.
This page is the footprint site, on the lake shore. The Engare Sero waterfalls are a river gorge walk behind the village, a separate visit in a different direction. The NCAA lists the footprints as the Engaresero Footprints Site; TAWA and the Ramsar documentation use Ngare Sero for the river. Itineraries mix all of this freely, so it is worth establishing which of the two a given day is actually buying.
Whose site it is
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority publishes a page on the footprints, which leads a great many people to assume the site is inside the conservation area. It is not. The NCAA groups it under its own heading of other and outpost attractions, alongside the Amboni Caves at Tanga, the Mbozi meteorite in Songwe Region and the Mumba rockshelter at Lake Eyasi — all of them sites well outside the conservation area’s boundary. Engare Sero is in Ngorongoro District, on the Lake Natron side, which is administered by the Tanzania Wildlife Management Authority as a game controlled area.
The practical effect is the same as for the waterfalls: conservation area fees and rules do not apply, and arrangements are made locally.
What a visit is like
A flat walk on the lake shore to a fenced area of grey rock with impressions in it, with a local guide pointing out individual trails. It is a small site and a quiet one, and its interest depends almost entirely on whether the guide can explain what is being looked at — the direction of travel, the spacing, the fact that the group was mostly adult women.
It is not visually dramatic and nobody should pretend otherwise. What it is, is the largest assemblage of ancient human footprints found in Africa, left by people anatomically identical to the visitor standing over them. See archaeological tours.
Not Laetoli
Tanzania’s other famous footprints, the Laetoli trackway, are 3.6 million years old, made by Australopithecus afarensis, inside the conservation area, and reburied for conservation so that they cannot be visited at all. The two sites are unrelated in age, species and accessibility.
Common questions
How old are the Engare Sero footprints?
Between 6,000 and 19,000 years, on the NCAA’s figures. They were made by anatomically modern humans, not by early hominins.
Are they inside the Ngorongoro Conservation Area?
No. The NCAA lists the site among its outpost attractions, which lie outside the conservation area. Engare Sero is on the Lake Natron side, under the Tanzania Wildlife Management Authority.
How many prints are there?
Over 400 hominid and animal prints across about 300 square metres, representing the paths of at least twenty individuals, according to the NCAA.