Tanzania to Promote Prehistoric Tourism

TANZANIA will attract more tourists in the future shall the country embrace Paleo (prehistoric) tourism which allows people to retrace human history.

"We call it Paleo tourism and so far the Olduvai Gorge and Laetoli archaeological sites of Northern Tanzania are where the entire world will be flocking to retrace human history," divulged Mr Zweli Vincent Mntambo, Deputy Chairperson of South African Tourism.

"It is a known fact that all people in the world originated from Africa and traces indicate that the first human to walk the earth was in the Ngorongoro site of Northern Tanzania," he said, adding that the continent's new type of tourism will be focused on this and that Arusha should be prepared for millions of 'time travelling' global visitors and scientists alike.

Mr Mntambo was speaking at the Olduvai Gorge where the 'Walking Tall' physical theatre troupe from South Africa was introducing the educational silent acrobatic shows depicting global history through human evolution, targeting to impact such knowledge to schools and colleges in Tanzania as well as the rest of East Africa.

"At the moment the combined figure of tourists visit at both Olduvai and Laetoli peaks at between 300 and 500 people per day with the number increasing during high season," stated Mr Godfrey Ole Moita, Head of Laetoli archaeological site.

He said that Laetoli is the only spot on earth with human footprints left by 'Australopithecus Afarensis' on volcanic ash at Laetoli, providing strong evidence of full-time bi-pedalism.

The human ancestors, Australopithecus Afarensis, according to Ole Moita, lived between 3.9 and 2.9 million years ago. Mr Moita was on view that since the historical sites tally in over 190,000 visitors per year, they are the second most popular destination after the crater (which gets 600,000 visitors in a year) the historical sites are currently also beating even the Zanzibar Island in tourists flow and once South Africa starts promoting them, the number may increase tenfold.

The 'silent theatre' which is set to promote those sites as well as other cradles of mankind in East Africa, was brought to Olduvai, then in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) by the Johannesburg-based Palaeontological Scientific Trust (PAST), whose Chief Executive, Ms Andrea Leenen explained that the best way to teach human evolution to people of different races, colour and language was through symbolic acrobatic performances that can be understood by practically everybody.

"In South Africa, for instance, we have 11 official languages in additional to other dialects and the 'Walking Tall' theatres have been able to express the message easily across these people speaking different tongues," she explained.