About Tracking in Caves

The study of rock art from the Ice Age onwards (late Pleistocene/early Holocene) is one of the main research areas explored by Tilman Lenssen-Erz and Andreas Pastoors. Rock art studies and excavations were undertaken in Namibia, Chad, southwestern France, Italy, Spain and Germany. During this research it turned out that the importance of the archaeological as well as the natural context of rock art has been constantly underestimated. Future research has to focus on this context for documentation, understanding and interpretation. Human footprints are most prominent – or rather impressive – among the long-time under-researched features of the context in painted caves. In order to compensate for this neglect we are running an innovative research program for several years already that focuses on the merging of indigenous knowledge and western archaeological science for the benefit of both sides.
This program started with reading of human tracks in painted caves by San hunters from Namibia and developed since then in various directions featuring the fusion of different knowledge systems. (source: project website)

Project leaders: 

Prof. Dr. Thorsten Uthmeier, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg 
Prof. Dr. Andreas Pastoors, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg
Dr. Tilman Lenssen-Erz, African Archaeology, Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology, University of Cologne

Project duration: 

2008 - 2019 

Further information: 

https://tracking-in-caves.org
Project website of the FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg
Project website of the University of Cologne

This database: 

This presentation of the research results in terms of a semantic database about the footprints in the Aldène cave was build up in the context of the project "Die Volp-Höhlen. Untersuchungen an einer Schlüsselfundstelle zur Kontextualisierung paläolithischer Felsbilder", funded by the DFG and lead by Prof. Dr. Andreas Pastoors and Prof. Dr. Thorsten Uthmeier from the FAU Erlangen Nürnberg. The partner for hosting and maintaining the database is the FAU CDI. For the technical and semantic documentation see here.