On Sunday 26th August 2012 the Ancestor’s Trail will once again trace the course of Evolution by following footpaths representing the branches of Charles Darwin’s Tree of Life.

This “pilgrimage” is a shared experience organised by humanists to celebrate the simple and ingenious truth that all life on Earth is related through evolution. Although we claim this as a shared experience for non-religious people; because, by definition, our common origins belong to us all, we warmly extend an open invitation to all people.

How does it work?

You’ll need to manipulate Darwin’s evolutionary tree in your head. Lie it flat along the spine of some picturesque hills in Somerset; its branches approximately lining up with its many tributary footpaths. Now add yourself at the end of one particular branch, representing one specific life form, and start walking towards its roots. Symbolically, each step will take you back in time.

If we are to reach our goal in a sensible time frame, each step must represent thousands or even millions of years.  In terms of the life forms with which we are most familiar, very little happens in the first few billion years of evolution, and yet, especially from a primate point of view, everything happens in just the last few million years.  Given this, we decided to create three different scales over the trail. The first expands our mammal centred period since the terrible climatic catastrophe that ended the reign of the dinosaurs. From this point on you will walk back 10,000 years every step. Beyond this point, our time travel increases by an order magnitude to 100,000 years per stride and then, for the last 2.7 billion years, we increase by another order of magnitude to around a million years every stride. In this way we ensure a relatively constant procession of rendezvous throughout the trail.

Eventually our symbolic re-enactment will reach its ultimate origin; the dawn of life itself. Staged along the rolling green hills of the Quantocks (an area of outstanding natural beauty) , we are very fortunate to be able to end the Trail at Kilve beach ~ a beautiful, rugged, rocky beach which is, appropriately enough, famous for its fossils.

People can choose their walking distance through the Trail they adopt. The longest Trails are nearly 20 miles, but for less hearty walkers or younger families, there are a whole range of shorter options. The Gazelle Trail is 10 miles, the Starfish Trail 5 miles and the Bacteria Trail less than a mile!  If you wish to avoid walking altogether, you can simply and turn up at the beach at the allotted time and join the party!

Our website includes a Google Map of the Quantock Hills. This provides links to detailed route plans for all the trails and once booked, we will add your name on your trail so you can see in advance with whom you will be walking. On specified trails marshals will lead you up to the main Trail rendezvous to make sure you don’t get lost!

Choosing your trail:

*First open the :  Google Map of the walk. You can choose to walk one of any of the many different trails, each one representing a different branch of Darwin’s tree. You need to decide how far you want to walk or, if you prefer, which life form you wish to represent. The distances are shown for each trail, along with a rendezvous arrival time that will ensure you meet up with all the other walkers on the human line of the Ancestor’s trail.