In 2003, another group was walking along the same ground, Aborigines on an archeology course led by Steve Webb, of Bond University, Queensland. They weren?t supposed to be there ? a colleague had taken them to the dull-looking clay pan by mistake ? but Webb thought it would still make good fieldwork practice for his students. More than 150 Ice Age human burials had been unearthed in the area, as well as the bones of now-extinct animals. However, after years of watching scientists take artefacts and remains away to museums and universities elsewhere, the elders of local tribes had placed a moratorium on excavations. Webb and his colleagues had only recently won back their trust. ?Is this a footprint?? asked Mary Pappin Jr, a 26-year-old member of the local Mutthi Mutthi tribe. ?Christ, it is,? replied Webb. They quickly spotted two or three more prints, which had been exposed as the wind eroded the dunes. Painstaking excavation has since revealed 450 more, as well as what appear to be spear holes in the ground and the tracks of kangaroos and emus. This is perhaps only an eighth of the total, the rest still covered by dunes, but it is already the largest collection of Ice Age footprints discovered anywhere in the world, laden with information about the group?s physiology, hunting tactics and social behaviour. ?It?s really quite a remarkable find,? said Matthew Cupper, an archeologist at the University of Melbourne who has been studying the prints. ?It?s a little snapshot in time. The possibilities are endless
in terms of getting a window into past Aboriginal society.?

Sherlock Holmes would be impressed by the information Webb and his team have extracted from these clues. The footprints vary in length from 6in to nearly 1ft; the smallest feet probably belonged to a child standing 3ft 5in high. The largest two group members, with feet of UK size 12 and 10, were about 6ft 6in and 6ft 4in tall, their impressive height corroborated by skeleton remains from a similar period, also discovered near the lakes. The distances between the footprints gave the archeologists the lengths of the strides taken, and by combining this with estimated leg lengths, they calculated speed ? a 2mph dawdle for the child, impressive sprints by the adults. The prints are so well preserved that they contain enough information to confirm these paces: the toes of the fastest men are spread apart, to gain purchase on the slippery mud.

One curious set of footprints appears to have been made by a one-legged man. It is unlikely that someone would have survived an amputation in this hunter-gatherer society, so some archeologists suggest he was playing a hopping game with a child, whose smaller footprints appear alongside. Others think he may have had one leg in a boat, propelling himself along with the other through shallow water.

The stature and the athleticism of the group show that they were fit, healthy and well nourished. When humans arrived at the lakes around 50,000BC, the land would have been lush, the freshwater lakes brimming with perch, cod, mussels and crayfish. As well as kangaroos and other game, there would have been plentiful waterfowl to hunt. But by the time these footprints were made, the climate had begun to change, becoming less hospitable as the Ice Age took hold. The world was becoming cooler, but this fertile area was turning to desert. As glaciers expanded at the poles, they tied up huge volumes of water, causing sea levels across the Earth to drop, to 100 metres below today?s level. The smaller oceans and cooler air meant less evaporation and therefore less rain, so the lakes were drying out, on their way to being the desiccated mud flats they are today. This earth dried for good soon after the group passed by, allowing their footprints to survive, a touchingly human link with a day in the life of our ancestors.

SEVEN STAGES OF MAN

3.2 million BC
?Lucy? lived
An upright-walking hominid, Lucy became man?s oldest discovered ancestor by almost 1m years when her skeleton (above) was uncovered
in Hadar, Ethiopia, in 1974.

1 million BC
Beginning of the Pleistocene era, a time of huge climatic change
During this epoch, vast ice sheets advanced and retreated four times over the Earth?s mountainous areas and northerly latitudes. Humans began to migrate out of Africa, from where it is widely believed they originated, and into Europe and Asia towards the end of the epoch.

50,000BC
Humans arrive in the Willandra Lakes area
Many archeologists believe that humans first arrived in Australia in canoes from Southeast Asia, during a time when water levels were lower and the dividing sea narrower.

20,000BC
Willandra Lakes footprints made
The largest collection of Pleistocene-era footprints yet discovered, they provide insights into the anatomy and behaviour of hunter-gatherers.

17,000BC
Lascaux wall paintings made in southwestern France
Discovered in 1940, these cave paintings are thought to be one of the world?s first recorded narratives.

8,000BC
The Ice Age ends, and the current geological period, the Holocene epoch, begins
Agricultural civilisations emerged soon after. The Holocene is sometimes referred to as the Age of Man: although Homo sapiens evolved before the start of the Holocene, all recorded human history falls within it.

3,000-1,500BC
The building of Stonehenge
Construction took an estimated 30m man-hours.