Share this story!            

South Africa showcases African origins of humankind

MAROPENG: South Africa hopes to draw hundreds of thousands of visitors to one of the world's most important paleontological sites, home to a treasure trove of fossils from the earliest humans who lived four million years ago.

The Cradle of Humankind, a UN world heritage site, has been hosting teams of scientists since 1936, digging in caves rich in fossil remains of the first ancestors who walked out of Africa to Europe and Asia some two million years ago.

On Wednesday President Thabo Mbeki inaugurates a new interpretation centre featuring exhibits that highlight the African origins of humankind and offering tours to the nearby Sterkfontein caves, the oldest continuous paleo-anthropological dig in the world.

"It's all about the past, where we came from," said tour guide Janietjie Motshwane, describing the new centre located northwest of Johannesburg at Maropeng, which means 'the place where we once lived' in Tswana.

It was there that 'Mrs Ples', the skull of an Australopithecus - a species that predates homo sapiens and whose brain was three times smaller than that of modern-day humans - was found in 1947. 'Mrs Ples', which recent studies show may have been a male, lived over two million years ago and the discovery of the fossil provided the first strong evidence establishing Africa as the cradle of humankind.

The spectacular 'Little Foot', an almost complete ape-man skeleton dating back to some four million to 3.3 million years ago was also uncovered in 1994 in the Sterkfontein caves, where some of the fossils remain, sealed off from the public.

"Little Foot remains worldwide the most significant hominid fossil finding," said Trish Hanekom, executive director of the Cradle of Humankind.

At Sterkfontein alone, more than 800 hominid fossils have been found, offering what Hanekom described as the "most prolific evidence of the origins of humankind."

But Hanekom says the new centre also provides long-overdue recognition to generations of scientists whose work on human evolution at the site flew in the face of the former apartheid government's racist views.

"In the face of quite strong opposition and certainly not much support from the government, they continued to do their research," said Hanekom.

"We hope that this site will be able to play a role in helping people understand where we came from, the diversity and also what unites us," she said. afp

Home | Foreign

Share this story!