Australopithecus africanus

2011-08-16 Africa Trip, Day 16 Today we visited the Cradle of Humankind, which is a World Heritage site due to it's significant hominid fossil discoveries. First we went to Maropeng, which means place of origin. It's basically a museum that tracks human evolution and had a lot of great displays for both adults and kids. Next, we visited an actual excavation site - Sterkfontein Caves, where a nearly complete 3-4 million year old hominid skeleton known as Little Foot is currently being recovered. We actually heard people working on it during the cave tour! This photo is from Maropeng in a room that displayed actual fossils instead of replicas. The skull is known as Stw 505 and was recovered at Sterkfontein in '89.  Also, I'd like to mention how awesome it is that the iPhone autocorrect knows 'Australopithecus'.  [last year]

africa