Charles Musiba: Conservation of the Laetoli Footprints: What Went Wrong?

A talk with Charles Musiba, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Denver.

Charles Musiba, professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado-Denver, works on hominins in Tanzania and South Africa.

A native of Tanzania, his focus is at Laetoli (northern Tanzania), where bipedal footprints were first found in 1976. His research explores the link between human evolution and climate change in ancient times (paleoecology), the process of fossilization (taphonomy), and the categorization of the various hominin discoveries in Laetoli, Ethiopia, and Kenya (taxonomy). In order to do this work, he must also navigate modern questions of conservation and sustainable use of ancient cultural heritage.

Charles Musiba visited Dartmouth College as part of the Fall 2021 Heritage Management Series: "Who Owns the Past?"