TIME Magazine: Keeping Track of a Dying Art
The science of tracking--following the paths of animals in the wild--has been practiced since hunter-gatherers first appeared on the African savanna some 100,000 years ago. Interpreting nature's vocabulary of footprints and foliage, Stone Age hunters not only pursued their prey but also acquired a practical understanding of recurring patterns in animal behavior. But the tracker's knowledge was never written down. Even today, among the few remaining hunter-gatherer communities in Africa, Asia and Australia, the best trackers can neither read nor write. Instead, their skills are passed down through the generations by oral tradition. But as these dwindling, isolated communities face increasing social marginalization, their tribal cultures and means of survival are under threat. Now, a South African scientist is using advanced computer technology to revive the dying art of tracking.
A run around the park or on a treadmill in the gym is the best most of us manage these days. We should do better really, given that our body shape - upright, with large buttocks - apparently evolved for running.
In the far reaches of the Kalahari Desert, in southern Africa, researcher Louis Liebenberg is deploying what may be the first illiterate computers integrated into a hunter-gatherer society, a group known as the San Bushmen. The desert natives, now thought to be the first people, are famous for their mysterious capacity to decipher animal tracks, or spoor, in the natural environment. The plethora of specific data that a Bushman can extract from even a partial spoor has astonished scientists for decades: This unusual ability is subtle and multispectral; it's steeped in an experience of nature that recognizes no division of life into distinct categories.
NORDHOEK, South Africa -- Sitting at his laptop computer, Louis Liebenberg compares two maps of the same area: While the first is plotted thickly with yellow dots, the yellow areas on the second map are far sparser.