Project Origins

Mary Leakey and her team discovered the 3.6 million-year-old fossil hominid trackway at Laetoli in northwest Tanzania in 1977 and began excavating the following year. Excavation continued in 1979, revealing more prints. The combined excavations yielded a trackway 27 meters long. After it was photographed, molded and cast, and documented photographically and photogrammetrically, the trackway was reburied for its protection under a mantle of soil capped with lava boulders.

After the reburial of the trackway, and absent maintenance or monitoring, the site gradually began to revegetate. The loose reburial fill and the lava boulder capping provided an environment conducive to germination and growth of acacia trees, which had reached a height of over 2 meters by 1985, raising concerns about damage to the footprints.

In 1992 the Tanzanian government invited the Getty Conservation Institute to assess the feasibility of a conservation project. To this end, the Tanzanian Department of Antiquities (DoA) opened a 3-by-3-meter trench on the southern portion of the trackway. The brief assessment revealed a fragile and weathered tuff surface, penetrated and disrupted by acacia tree roots.