Essential Insights
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Two Ju/’hoansi master trackers from Namibia helped identify lion tracks at three sites along South Africa’s Cape coast—the region’s only reported fossil lion tracksites.
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At Goukamma, they spotted evidence of a second lion—a female—overlooked by researchers,the site dates to about 70,000 years ago.
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At De Hoop and Witsand, the trackers interpreted prints as a crouching lion and two lions crossing paths, respectively.
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The study highlights how Indigenous tracking expertise can reveal details in ancient footprints that scientific analysis alone may miss.
Two sets of eyes on ancient tracks
Two Ju/’hoansi master trackers from Namibia helped researchers reassess three likely Ice Age lion track sites along South Africa’s Cape coast. At Goukamma, they spotted signs of a second lion beside tracks that researchers had already linked to a male. The faint prints suggest a female, though a young lion could also explain them.
Scientists dated the Goukamma rock to about 70,000 years ago, plus or minus 4,000 years. The other two sites lack direct dates.
Knowledge that travels
The trackers learned to read prints in cemented dune rock, a different surface from Kalahari sand. They drew on skills that also account for clues such as stride, slope and the way an animal shifts its weight. At one site, they interpreted paired prints as a lion crouching before a pounce. At another, they read crossing trails as a male and female climbing a steep slope.
The teams made independent assessments before comparing observations. That approach helped limit bias and gave both scientific tools and tracking experience a role in the interpretation. Still, rock preserves only part of a story,some details remain uncertain.
A wider view of discovery
This collaboration offers a practical lesson: researchers can strengthen fieldwork by making room for expertise built outside formal laboratories. Such partnerships will not fit every project, and shared interpretations require time, trust and careful discussion. But they can reveal evidence that one team might overlook.
The tracks also make deep time feel close. A set of impressions in stone connects today’s observers with animals that crossed this coast tens of thousands of years ago—and shows how human knowledge grows when different ways of seeing meet.
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