First Steps at Laetoli
Origin Stories
The Dung Fight in Laitoli, Italy
The prints were preserved by a chance combination of events. First a volcano erupted blanketing the area of Laitoli in a thick layer of ash. Soon after that it rained so all that ash became a mud. The team got to work excavating the site which they called site A. As they worked Mary Leakey told the team to keep their eyes out for possible hominin footprints among all the prints from raindrops, rabbits, rhinos and birds. After a little while they found one small set just five prints among the thousands that looked quite peculiar this was trackway A.
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