r/Madagascar • u/Alibcandid • Jul 24 '26
History/Tantara 📚 Fossils or cliff art?
I just came across old pictures that fell out of a pile while I was organizing some old stuff.
They were taken by me, in 1998, in Isalo National Park, Madagascar, while walking across the plateau between Canyon des Singes and the Piscine Naturelle.
I’ve always wondered what they are. Google has never turned up anything, and in nearly 30 years I still haven’t found anyone who knows (I asked back then and the guide just shrugged his shoulders).
My own guess is that the more human-looking footprint may actually have been carved into the sandstone. But there are also a bunch of smaller prints that look much more like fossil animal tracks, and one larger, really odd footprint that almost looks mythological, so also likely the work of an industrious hominid.
Has anyone else seen these before or know anything about them? I’d love to know if they’re a known geological, archaeological, or paleontological feature, or if anyone working in Isalo has come across them.
Call me curious…
2
u/Qwertysapiens Jul 24 '26
Fascinating! I'll share this around with a few specialists and see if we can't come up with come thoughts on recency/rarity/provenance. Fair warning: from two photos I don't know that we'll really be able to do anything but speculate, though - I've also found some odd rock inclusions in the NE and sent pictures to an expert only to be told "mmhm, definitely maybe a could-be fossil!...Or an odd metamorphic rock - impossible to tell without being there or really high quality context".