Evaluation of the Trackway Condition

In response to a 2008 presidential decision to permanently open the hominid trackway at Site G to public visitation, the Tanzanian Department of Antiquities in 2011 organized a partial re-excavation of 3.5 meters of the southern sector of the trackway for assessment. The Getty Conservation Institute was requested to participate, along with a team that included specialists from Tanzania, the United States, South Korea, South Africa, and Spain and a representative from ICCROM.

Conservation Institute staff members Neville Agnew and Martha Demas, who led the 1990s conservation project, participated in the 2011 partial re-excavation in order to examine the exposed tracks and check the efficacy of the various technical strategies that had been put in place to preserve the trackway. They also offered a measured approach to construction of a museum over the tracks by pointing to the risks and challenges to sustainability of such an undertaking.

For details of the 2011 evaluation, see Report on the Partial Re-Excavation of the Laetoli Hominid Trackway, Site G in the Resources section.