San trackers show off skills

The three San trackers employed by German researchers to help unveil the secrets of pre-historic footprints in the Pyrenees mountains have made their first break-through.

After an introductory journey in Germany, the trackers together with their German colleagues travelled to France to begin work.

According to a blog entry on /www.portal.uni-koeln.de, the expertise of the trackers was revealed on the very first day. On July 4, the group visited the Parc de la Prehistoire. Here a replica of human footprints from the Réseau Clastres cave. Immediately the trackers set to work and after a long discussion, surprised the researchers by saying that the three sets of footprints actually belonged to one person.

Their diagnosis was proved to be correct by Jean Clottes, another pre-historic researcher, who had joined the group. He noted that the three sets of footprints were in fact only one set, and that the other two had been created by researches decades before, when they made copies of the prints. No wonder the expert San immediately recognised that the footprints belonged to only one person. 

From there, the group travelled to the Niaux cave, to inspect pre-histoic ice age footprints. For half an hour, the San trackers poured over about 24 prints, and afterwards concluded that the prints belonged to a 12 year old girl. Two ‘phases’ of footprints were left behind. 

Other excitement was on offer for the San, when later on that day they witnessed their first snowfall.