In late November 2023, I travelled with colleagues from the the UK and France to Johannesburg, South Africa. We visited the hominin fossil collections at Wits University, toured the Cradle of Humankind and, more specifically, Sterkfontein cave system, attended a two day long workshop called BrAIn (evolution of the brain in our own lineage and the future application of AI technology to this field), and also managed a day off to head on safari! Wow, what a week! It was an utter dream come true to hold some of the palaeoanthropology’s most famous fossils AND to visit Sterkfontein to see where some of these fossils were found!!
Many many thanks to my funders: Leverhulme Trust and the Isaac Newton Trust.
In the photos below (from left to right), we can see the top of the excavations at Sterkfontein, followed by a necessary selfie (had to prove I was there, right?!). Then we have the team heading down into one of the caves. Next, we can see what that same view looks like, but facing the other direction from inside the cave! Finally, we have Dr Amelie Beaudet and Professor Dominic Stratford walking in the Cradle of Humankind towards Sterkfontein. If we look over towards the left of the photo (imagine you can see what the camera is cutting off), we have Kromdraii, Rising Star, Drimolen…. To the right, we have Swartkrans. I have spent over a decade learning and then researching these caves and I never realised just how close all these systems are – you can stand on top of the hill, spin in a circle and see them all!! For me, that was eye-opening and changed my perception a little about the hominin material from South Africa. I once thought this region was extremely vast, but knowing now that the area is much smaller than I thought, I’m now excited to think what else is out there in SA if most of what we have found to date comes from such a small geographic region!
Below, I share some photos from inside the vault at Wits itself! From left to right: happy me receiving my pass to work with the collections and standing at the entrance to the vault! I was very happy to finally see the famous Little Foot skeleton in person – that was a dream come true!! Next, we have Dr Julia Aramendi Picado scanning some specimens whilst Amelie and I stand by smiling (we were working, I promise!). Finally, we have the famous sediba skull. The preparation on this skull was phenomenal! Hats of to the preparators who evidently worked very tirelessly to expose this specimen.
So, what’s next? Well, I have a few months of data preparation and analysis to come… Watch this space!
Bonus content – video of Little Foot!
If you’d like a higher quality video of teaching purposes etc, just reach out!
The Walking Hominins 