Latest news with #Australopithecusafricanus
NDTV
25-04-2025
- Science
- NDTV
South Africa's 'Cradle Of Humankind' Caves Reopen After Flooding
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 50 kilometres (30 miles) 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. 'Missing something' 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.
The South African
25-04-2025
- Science
- The South African
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
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
The fossil skull that rocked the world – 100 years later scientists are grappling with the Taung find's complex colonial legacy
Here's how the story of the Taung Child is usually told: In 1924 an Australian anthropologist and anatomist, Raymond Dart, acquired a block of calcified sediment from a limestone quarry in South Africa. He painstakingly removed a fossil skull from this material. A few months later, on 7 February 1925, he published his description of what he argued was a new hominin species, Australopithecus africanus, in the journal Nature. It was nicknamed the Taung Child, a reference to the discovery site and its young age. The international scientific community rebuffed this hypothesis. They were looking outside Africa for human origins and argued that the skull more likely belonged to a non-human primate. Dart was vindicated decades later after subsequent similar fossil discoveries elsewhere in Africa. Dart is portrayed as prescient in most retellings. He's hailed for elevating the importance of Africa in the narrative of human origins. But is this a biased and simplified narrative? The discovery played out during a period marked by colonialism, racism and racial segregation and apartheid in South Africa. The history of human origins research is, therefore, intertwined with inequality, exclusion and scientifically unsound ideas. Viewed against this backdrop, and with a contemporary lens, the figure of Dart, and palaeoanthropology on the African continent more broadly, is complex and worthy of reflection. The South African Journal of Science has published a special issue to mark the centenary of Dart's original paper. A group of African researchers and international collaborators, ourselves among them, contributed papers offering perspectives on the science, history and legacy of palaeoanthropology in South Africa and beyond. We were particularly interested in exploring how the history of the discovery of early hominins in South Africa influenced the scientific field of palaeoanthropology. Did it promote or limit scientific enquiry? In what ways? What were its cultural effects? And how do they play out now, a century later? The papers in the special issue unpack a number of issues and highlight ongoing debates in the field of human evolution research in Africa and beyond. Our goal is to celebrate the remarkable science that the discovery of A. africanus enabled. At the same time we are probing disciplinary legacies through a critical lens that challenges researchers to do science better. Several key themes run through the contributions in the special issue. One is the unheard voices. The colonial framework in which most palaeoanthropological research in South Africa took place excluded all but a few groups. This is particularly true for Indigenous voices. As a legacy, few African researchers in palaeoanthropology are first authors on prominent research or leading international research teams. Too often, African palaeoanthropological heritage is the domain of international teams that conduct research on the continent with little meaningful collaboration from local African researchers. This is 'helicopter science'. More diverse teams will produce better future work and those of us in the discipline must actively drive this process. Read more: The dominance of western male viewpoints is part of the colonial framework. This theme, too, threads through most of the work in the special issue. In a bid to redress some of the imbalances, a majority of the authors in the special issue were women, especially African women, and Black Africans more broadly. Many of the papers call for a more considered and equitable approach to the inclusion of African researchers, technicians and excavators in the future: in workshops and seminars, on professional bodies, as collaborators and knowledge creators, and in authorship practices. Colonial legacies also manifest in a lack of social responsiveness – the use of professional expertise for a public purpose or benefit. This is another theme in the special edition. For example, Gaokgatlhe Mirriam Tawane, Dipuo Kgotleng and Bando Baven consider the broader effects of the Taung Child discovery on the Taung community. Tawane is a palaeoanthropologist and grew up in the Taung municipality. She and her co-authors argue that, a century after the discovery of the fossil, there is little (if any) reason for the local community to celebrate it. They argue that more must be done not only to give back to the community, which is beset by socio-economic struggles, but also to build trust in science and between communities and scientists. Researchers need to understand that there is value in engaging with people beyond academia. This is not merely to disseminate scientific knowledge. It can also enrich communities and co-create a scholarship that is more nuanced, ethical and relevant. Researchers must become more socially responsive and institutions must hold researchers to higher standards of practice. Another theme which emerges from this special issue is the value of and the need for excellent local laboratory facilities in which to undertake research based on the fossils and deposits associated with them. Increased investment in local laboratory facilities and capacity development can create a shift towards local work on the content being led by Africans. It can also increase pan-African collaboration, dismantling the currently common practice of African researchers being drawn into separate international networks. It is important for international funding bodies to increase investment within African palaeoanthropology. This will facilitate internal growth and local collaborative networks. International and South African investment is also needed to grow local research capacity. Fossil heritage is a national asset. This is an edited version of an article in the South African Journal of Science. Yonatan Sahle (Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town, South Africa and Department of History and Heritage Management, Arba Minch University, Ethiopia) co-authored the academic article. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Rebecca Ackermann, University of Cape Town; Lauren Schroeder, University of Toronto, and Robyn Pickering, University of Cape Town Read more: Senegal sees French troops depart as west Africa reassesses colonial ties East of Empire: partitioning of India and Palestine unleashed the violent conflict that continues today Fossil face discovery highlights challenges faced by Europe's earliest settlers Rebecca Ackermann receives funding from the National Science Foundation African Origins Platform (AOP240509218040) and the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Lauren Schroeder receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (RGPIN-2020-04159) Robyn Pickering receives funding from the NRF African Origins Platform (AOP240509218076) and the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences (COE2024-RP)
Mail & Guardian
21-04-2025
- Science
- Mail & Guardian
Sterkfontein Caves reopened after safety upgrades
The Elephant Chamber is one of the main chambers within the Sterkfontein Caves, known for its significant role in paleontological discoveries, including the discovery of hominid fossils. (Umamah Bakharia/M&G) After a two-year closure prompted by safety concerns and conservation efforts, the Sterkfontein Caves—one of South Africa's most celebrated paleoanthropological sites—have officially reopened to the public, the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) has announced. Located within the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site in Gauteng, the caves have yielded some of the most significant fossil discoveries related to human evolution, including the iconic Australopithecus africanus specimens 'Mrs Ples' and 'Little Foot.' The finds have cemented South Africa's role as a central player in the field of human origins research. The site was closed in early 2023 following safety assessments by Wits University's occupational and safety directorate. The decision came after heavy rainfall in December 2022 saturated soil layers above the cave system, causing destabilisation and increasing the risk of collapse. 'There were some earth movements, so we put in some sensors and monitored it,' said Professor Nithaya Chetty, Dean of the Faculty of Science at Wits. 'We found areas that needed reinforcement and made the decision to close. We have since conducted several tests, and the cave is now safe.' It was the first public closure in the site's history. The caves now boast refurbished pathways, improved lighting, and enhanced visitor infrastructure. A new interpretive centre is also under development. Chetty said the upgrades reflect a broader commitment to preserving the site's integrity while expanding its educational and scientific potential. 'With a lot of care, attention to detail and scientific advancements, we can preserve the site for many more years to come, just like the site has been preserved for millions of years,' he said. Among the new advancements is the adoption of artificial intelligence to accelerate fossil discovery and analysis. Traditionally, researchers excavated fossils manually—a painstaking process involving delicate chiselling and brushing. Now, AI tools allow scientists to scan blocks of rock using X-ray technology, offering insight into the fossil's contents before excavation begins. 'This saves us years of extracting and lab processing,' Chetty said. 'It will advance science.' The Sterkfontein Caves are part of a dolomitic system estimated to have formed 20 to 30 million years ago, with over 2.5 kilometres of mapped underground chambers. The unique mineral composition, including calcium carbonate deposited by dripping water, aids in the rare preservation of fossils. The site has produced more than 700 hominid fossil specimens, making it one of the richest early human fossil sites globally. 'Little Foot,' excavated between 1994 and 1998 by Ron Clarke and a team including Nkwane Molefe and Stephen Motsumi, is considered one of the most complete hominid skeletons ever found, dating back 3.67 million years. Today, Molefe's son, researcher Itumeleng Molefe, continues the legacy. Working in the 'Elephant Chamber,' named for its towering dolomite formations, he described the meticulous nature of the work. 'We sweep the area with a brush and take out the rocks,' he said. 'When we see something interesting, we put it aside, clean it up and send it to the lab for inspection. But it's not every day that we find something—maybe once every two weeks or even once a month. It takes time.' While the scientific significance of the site is globally recognised, local economic and environmental considerations remain critical. Tourism is a vital economic driver for the region, but community members in nearby Mogale City have long called for more inclusive development strategies. Some local guides say they hope the reopening will create more jobs and skills development opportunities. 'It's not just about people coming to see rocks and bones,' said Trevor Buthelezi, a local guide. 'It's about telling stories, passing on knowledge, and making sure young people from here know what lies beneath their feet.' To balance preservation with access, the revamped management plan includes caps on daily visitor numbers and an expanded digital presence. Plans include 3D virtual cave tours aimed at schools across South Africa, allowing students to engage with the site without compromising its fragile environment. The Sterkfontein Caves remain under the sole custodianship of Wits University.
New York Times
02-04-2025
- Science
- New York Times
Ralph Holloway, Anthropologist Who Studied Brain's Evolution, Dies at 90
Ralph Holloway, an anthropologist who pioneered the idea that changes in brain structure, and not just size, were critical in the evolution of humans, died on March 12 at his home in Manhattan. He was 90. His death was announced by Columbia University's anthropology department, where he taught for nearly 50 years. Mr. Holloway's contrarian idea was that it wasn't necessarily the big brains of humans that distinguished them from apes or primitive ancestors. Rather, it was the way human brains were organized. Brains from several million years ago don't exist. But Dr. Holloway's singular focus on casts of the interiors of skull fossils, which he usually made out of latex, allowed him to override this hurdle. He 'compulsively collected' information from these casts, he wrote in a 2008 paper. Crucially, they offered a representation of the brain's exterior edges, which allowed scientists to get a sense of the brain's structure. Using a so-called endocast, Dr. Holloway was able to establish conclusively, for instance, that a famous and controversial two-million-year-old hominid fossil skull from a South Africa limestone quarry, known as the Taung child, belonged to one of mankind's distant ancestors. The Taung child's brain was small, leading many to doubt the conclusion of Raymond Dart, the anatomist who discovered it in the 1920s, that it was a human ancestor. In 1969, Dr. Holloway took his family to South Africa to meet the elderly Dr. Dart, to examine the natural limestone endocast that the Taung child's positioning in the quarry had created and to make an endocast of his own. 'I became convinced that the Taung endocast needed independent study,' he wrote in 2008, in order to 'find an objective method(s) for deciding whether the cortex was reorganized as Dart had previously claimed,' so many years before. Dr. Holloway focused on a crescent-shaped furrow, called the lunate sulcus, at the back of the endocast. In his view, it was positioned like a human's, which suggested to him that Dr. Dart had been right all along. Others in the field had insisted that the Taung lunate sulcus was in a 'typical ape anterior position,' he wrote. By now, the conclusions made by Dr. Holloway and Dr. Dart about the lunate sulcus have largely been accepted: The Taung child is a human ancestor. 'If you can define where it is and prove it, then you can really demonstrate that it is an aspect of reorganization,' Dr. Holloway told an interviewer for Archaeology magazine in 2007. That concept — the brain's structure rather than its volume — was the decisive factor in proving human ancestry. 'I was taking the position, as had Dart before me, that reorganization took place prior to the increase in brain volume,' Dr. Holloway wrote in 2008. 'I believed then and remain convinced today that the earliest hominids, i.e., Australopithecus africanus, A. afarensis, and A. garhi, had brains that were definitely different from any ape's, despite their small size,' he added. Early in his career, he had decided, unlike many of his peers, that the mere study of apes wasn't enough. 'I could not fathom using baboons as a theoretical model for understanding human evolution because I regarded each species as a terminal end product of their own line of evolutionary development,' he wrote. It was humans, and the fossils of their ancestors, that needed to be the focus. 'He was very important in paleoanthropology, in bringing the study of brain evolution from being a marginal enterprise to the center,' said Chet C. Sherwood, a biological anthropologist at the George Washington University, in an interview. 'And he did it by innovating methods for reconstructing cranial morphology,' said Dr. Sherwood, who studied under Dr. Holloway at Columbia in the 1990s. The confrontation between Dr. Holloway and his 'reorganization' partisans, on the one hand, and neuroanthopologists who insisted that Taung and similar specimens were more likely apes, on the other, could become 'extremely emotionally charged,' Dr. Holloway wrote. Of one such encounter, he wrote that 'fortunately, at 430 ml, the endocasts could not do much damage even if thrown, despite being made of plaster.' Dr. Holloway was in some respects a traditional anthropologist, committed to what the discipline once called the 'four fields' of anthropology: archaeology and cultural, biological and linguistic anthropology. But that multidisciplinary approach has long fallen out of favor, with biologists increasingly pushed aside. 'I was quickly isolated and marginalized at Columbia, and remain so,' he wrote in 2008. He was further isolated when he defended the educational psychologist Arthur R. Jensen, remembered for a deeply contested 1969 Harvard Educational Review article positing a genetic explanation for a divergence in I.Q. scores between Black and white people. One fellow anthropologist called him a 'racist,' Dr. Holloway wrote, after 'I had the temerity to defend Arthur Jensen' from an 'assertion that Jensen was a bigot.' Some who knew him said the charge was deeply unfair. Ralph Leslie Holloway Jr. was born on Feb. 6, 1935, in Philadelphia, to Ralph Holloway, who was in the insurance business, and Marguerite (Grugan) Holloway, a secretary. He attended high school in Philadelphia and enrolled in Drexel Institute of Technology's metallurgical engineering program. He later moved with his family to Albuquerque, where he studied anthropology and geology at the University of New Mexico, graduating in 1959 with a degree in geology. After working for a time in the oil fields of southwest Texas and for Lockheed Aircraft in Burbank, Calif., he entered the graduate program in anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he received his Ph.D. in 1964. That year, he was recruited by Columbia as an assistant professor, and he remained there until his retirement in 2003. He was the author of or contributed to several books, including 'The Role of Human Social Behavior in the Evolution of the Brain' (1975). Dr. Holloway is survived by his daughter, Marguerite Holloway, and two grandchildren. Two sons, Eric and Benjamin, and his first and second wives, Louise Holloway and Daisy Dwyer, are deceased. For his entire career, Dr. Holloway remained focused on a single organ, the brain, and on the three-dimensional modeling he perfected to study its development. 'Because the human brain is the most important constructor of experience and reality, it would be important to know how it came to its present state,' he explained at the end of his career. 'Endocasts, i.e., the casts made of the internal table of bone of the cranium, are rather impoverished objects,' he continued, 'to achieve such an understanding, but these are all we have of the direct evolutionary history of our brains and should not be ignored.'
