South Africa's 'cradle of humankind' caves reopen to public
Seated on sandbags in a knee-deep grid dug in South Africa's Sterkfontein caves, where one of our earliest ancestors was found, Itumeleng Molefe swept ancient soil into a blue dustpan, each brushstroke hunting for hidden clues.
Nearby, visitors marvelled at the weathered limestone rocks hanging from the ceiling of the caves, millions of years old.
Located 50km northwest of Johannesburg, the caves closed nearly three years ago due to flooding and reopened in April with a new experience bringing tourists closer to the scientific action.
The complex is housed within the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, a rich source of artefacts for palaeontologists since it was first discovered.
'My aim is to find important bones here,' said the 40-year-old Molefe.
His most prized find since joining the excavation team in 2013 was an early human hand bone.
His father was part of the team that uncovered South Africa's most famous find, a skeleton dubbed 'Little Foot', in the caves.
Deriving its name from the size of the bones first discovered in the 1990s, it is the most complete specimen of a human ancestor yet discovered, estimated to be between 1.5 and 3.7 million years old.
Little Foot is from a branch of the human family tree called Australopithecus, Latin for 'southern ape' – considered the ancestors of modern humans, with a mixture of ape-like and human characteristics.
'This reopening represents a significant evolution in how we share the story of human origins,' said Nithaya Chetty, dean of the University of the Witwatersrand faculty of science, which manages the caves and the nearby museum.
'Visitors now have unique opportunities to engage with active live science and research, all happening in real time,' said the professor.
At their peak before the Covid-19 pandemic, the caves received up to 100 000 tourists a year.
The closure had left a lingering feeling of sadness, said Witwatersrand archaeology professor Dominic Stratford, recalling busloads of schoolchildren and inquisitive visitors.
'Everyone felt like we were missing something,' he told AFP.
A temporary exhibit of the fossils has been set up at the museum, where visitors will also get a chance to see 'Mrs Ples', the most complete skull of an Australopithecus africanus, found in South Africa in 1947.
Guiding helmet-clad visitors through the 2.5 kilometres of caves bathed in soft blue LED lights, Trevor Butelezi gestures toward a shadowy passage that leads to an underground lake.
'It's actually a beautiful cavity,' said the 34-year-old tourism graduate, his voice echoing gently off the walls.
'Africa gave rise to humanity and it's not a small thing,' he said, paraphrasing a quote from the South African palaeontologist Phillip Tobias.
For now, those hoping to glimpse the original Little Foot will have to wait for heritage month in September. The skeleton, which took two decades to excavate and assemble, is only displayed on special occasions.
Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1
Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news.
By Garrin Lambley © Agence France-Presse
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
eNCA
4 hours ago
- eNCA
Trump-Musk showdown threatens US space plans
WASHINGTON - SpaceX's rockets ferry US astronauts to the International Space Station. Its Starlink satellite constellation blankets the globe with broadband, and the company is embedded in some of the Pentagon's most sensitive projects, including tracking hypersonic missiles. So when President Donald Trump threatened on Thursday to cancel Elon Musk's federal contracts, space watchers snapped to attention. Musk, the world's richest person, shot back that he would mothball Dragon -- the capsule NASA relies on for crew flights -- before retracting the threat a few hours later. For now, experts say mutual dependence should keep a full-blown rupture at bay, but the episode exposes just how disruptive any break could be. Founded in 2002, SpaceX leapfrogged legacy contractors to become the world's dominant launch provider. Driven by Musk's ambition to make humanity multiplanetary, it is now NASA's sole means of sending astronauts to the ISS -- a symbol of post–Cold War cooperation and a testbed for deeper space missions. - Space monopoly? - The company has completed 10 regular crew rotations to the orbiting lab and is contracted for four more, under a deal worth nearly $5 billion. That's just part of a broader portfolio that includes $4 billion from NASA for developing Starship, the next-generation megarocket; nearly $6 billion from the Space Force for launch services; and a reported $1.8 billion for Starshield, a classified spy satellite network. Were Dragon grounded, the United States would again be forced to rely on Russian Soyuz rockets for ISS access -- as it did between 2011 and 2020, following the Space Shuttle's retirement and before Crew Dragon entered service. "Under the current geopolitical climate, that would not be optimal," space analyst Laura Forczyk told AFP. NASA had hoped Boeing's Starliner would provide redundancy, but persistent delays -- and a failed crewed test last year -- have kept it grounded. Even Northrop Grumman's cargo missions now rely on SpaceX's Falcon 9, the workhorse of its rocket fleet. The situation also casts a shadow over NASA's Artemis program. A lunar lander variant of Starship is slated for Artemis III and IV, the next US crewed Moon missions. If Starship were sidelined, rival Blue Origin could benefit -- but the timeline would almost certainly slip, giving China, which aims to land humans by 2030, a chance to get there first, Forczyk warned. "There are very few launch vehicles as capable as Falcon 9 -- it isn't feasible to walk away as easily as President Trump might assume," she said. NASA, meanwhile, appeared eager to show that it had options. "NASA is assessing the earliest potential for a Starliner flight to the International Space Station in early 2026, pending system certification and resolution of Starliner's technical issues," the agency said in a statement Friday to AFP. Still, the feud could sour Trump on space altogether, Forczyk cautioned, complicating NASA's long-term plans. SpaceX isn't entirely dependent on the US government. Starlink subscriptions and commercial launches account for a significant share of its revenue, and the company also flies private missions. The next, with partner Axiom Space, will carry astronauts from India, Poland, and Hungary, funded by their respective governments. - Private power, public risk - But losing US government contracts would still be a major blow. "It's such a doomsday scenario for both parties that it's hard to envision how US space efforts would fill the gap," Clayton Swope, deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told AFP. "Both sides have every reason to bridge the disagreement and get back to business." Signs of a rift emerged last weekend, when the White House abruptly withdrew its nomination of e-payments billionaire Jared Isaacman -- a close Musk ally who has twice flown to space with SpaceX -- as NASA administrator. On a recent podcast, Isaacman said he believed he was dropped because "some people had some axes to grind, and I was a good, visible target." The broader episode could also reignite debate over Washington's reliance on commercial partners, particularly when one company holds such a dominant position. Swope noted that while the US government has long favoured buying services from industry, military leaders tend to prefer owning the systems they depend on. "This is just another data point that might bolster the case for why it can be risky," he said. "I think that seed has been planted in a lot of people's minds -- that it might not be worth the trust."
The South African
a day ago
- The South African
Dehorning of South Africa's rhinos helps slash poaching
The dehorning of rhinos resulted in a nearly 80-percent reduction in the poaching of the animals during a seven-year study in a major South African conservation area, researchers said. Sawing off the sought-after horns was also a fraction of the cost of other counter-poaching measures such as deploying rangers or tracking dogs, according to the study published in the journal Science. The study was carried out between 2017 and 2023 in 11 reserves around South Africa's famed Kruger National Park that protect the world's largest rhino population. During this period, some 1 985 rhinos were poached in the reserves in the Greater Kruger area despite $74 million spent mostly on reactive law enforcement measures that netted around 700 poachers, it said. By contrast, dehorning 2 284 rhinos cut poaching by 78 percent at just 1.2 percent of that budget, said the study published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 'Some poaching of dehorned rhinos continued because poachers targeted horn stumps and regrowth, signalling the need for regular dehorning alongside judicious use of law enforcement,' the study said. South Africa is home to most of the world's rhinos, including the critically endangered black rhino, and is a hotspot for poaching driven by demand in Asia where the horns are used in traditional medicine. Rhino horn is highly sought after on the black market, where the price by weight rivals that of gold and cocaine. Alongside ivory, the horns are coveted as status symbols or used in traditional medicine for their supposed aphrodisiac properties. 'Ongoing socioeconomic inequality incentivises a large pool of vulnerable and motivated people to join, or poach for, criminal syndicates even when the risks are high,' the researchers said. Corruption also played a role with gangs receiving insider tips to evade detection and arrest, they said. 'Although detecting and arresting poachers is essential, strategies that focus on reducing opportunities for and rewards from poaching may be more effective,' the study said. It added, however, that 'the effects of dehorning on rhino biology are still unclear, with present research suggesting that dehorning may alter rhino space use but not survival and reproduction.' A recent study in South Africa showed dehorning rhinos reduced poaching by up to 78 percent © GIANLUIGI GUERCIA / AFP/File The co-authors of the study are from South Africa's Nelson Mandela University and the University of Cape Town, and various conservation groups including the Wildlife Conservation Network and United Kingdom's Save the Rhino International. South Africa had more than 16 000 rhinos at the end of 2023, mostly white rhinos, according to government data. But at least 34 rhinos were killed each month, the environment minister said in May. In 2024 South African scientists injected radioactive material into live rhino horns to make them easier to detect at border posts in a pioneering project aimed at curbing poaching. The radioactive material would not impact the animal's health or the environment in any way but make it poisonous for human consumption, according to the University of the Witwatersrand's radiation and health physics unit which spearheaded the initiative. Black rhinos are listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as critically endangered. Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1 Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news. By Garrin Lambley © Agence France-Presse
eNCA
a day ago
- eNCA
Renowned Mars expert says Trump-Musk axis risks dooming mission
WASHINGTON - Robert Zubrin quite literally wrote the book on why humanity should go to Mars -- so why has the renowned aerospace engineer soured on Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur leading the charge? In an interview, the 73-year-old founder of the Mars Society delivered a blistering critique, accusing the world's richest person of undermining the mission through divisive politics and a bleak vision of the Red Planet as an escape from Earth rather than a journey of hope. "On one level, he's absolutely instrumental in opening up this opportunity to get humans to Mars, both through the development of Starship and also the inspiration that has been caused," Zubrin told AFP, referring to Musk's prototype rocket. "But for it to succeed, it has to go beyond these -- this initiative cannot be seen as a Musk hobbyhorse or a Trump hobbyhorse -- it must be seen, at a minimum, as America's program, or preferably the Free World's program." Zubrin's 1996 book "The Case for Mars," since updated numerous times, laid out a practical blueprint for reaching and settling the Red Planet using existing technologies and local resources -- with the ultimate goal of transforming the atmosphere for long-term human habitation. - Supporter turned critic - The book won praise from Musk himself, who once posed with Zubrin at SpaceX's Starship facility in Texas and called it "worth reading." But today, Zubrin -- who co-authored the Mars Direct plan in 1990, has published hundreds of papers, and invented several advanced propulsion concepts -- sees troubling signs. While he described Musk as a "tremendously talented and forceful person," he said his success has bred "hubris and arrogance," comparing him to Napoleon as he thumped his fist for emphasis. He was especially critical of Musk's embrace of Donald Trump during the 2024 election and his role as the administration's chainsaw-wielding cost slasher. "This combination of Trump and Musk is not going to persist forever," Zubrin warned, in an interview conducted before the pair's relationship imploded Thursday in a spectacular public row. "And if this program is identified as their deal, it will be crushed as soon as opposing forces have sufficient power." During their fight on Thursday, Trump called Musk "crazy" and threatened to terminate his government contracts worth billions of dollars. Zubrin also condemned Trump's efforts to gut NASA's space science budget -- a move he sees as fundamentally at odds with the exploratory spirit of the Mars endeavour. The Mars Sample Return mission -- aimed at retrieving specimens collected by the Perseverance rover -- is among the biggest science projects on the chopping block. Although the mission, developed with the European Space Agency, has suffered delays and budget overruns, Zubrin said eliminating it entirely rather than reforming it would be a mistake. "This threatens to brand this program with the mark of Cain of original sin -- that this program is born with the blood of the murder of Space Science on it." - Creative outpost - Where Zubrin still sees promise is in Starship -- Musk's massive prototype rocket aimed at making life multiplanetary, though the vessel's repeated test explosions show there's a long way to go. He diverges with Musk over how it should be used. Starship is far too large to serve as a Mars ascent vehicle, Zubrin said. The Mars expert has proposed a vessel he calls Starboat -- a compact lander that could shuttle between planetary surfaces and orbit, using a fraction of the propellant and surface power. But his sharpest critiques are philosophical. He rejects Musk's portrayal of Mars as a refuge from a dying Earth -- a vision that echoes the works of science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. "We're not going to Mars out of despair," Zubrin said. "We're going to Mars out of hope... to establish new branches of human civilisation which will add their creative capacity to that of humanity as a whole." He sees Mars not as a refuge but renewal, where a campaign beginning with robotic missions in the late 2020s and culminating in human landings by 2033 could inspire bipartisan support, showcase American ingenuity and restore national purpose. "If we do the kind of program that I advocated... we will once again, as we did in Apollo, astonish the world with what free people can do," he said. "We'll make it clear that freedom, not authoritarianism, is the future of the human race." by Issam Ahmed
