On our sixteenth day in South Africa and our third day in The City of Gold, we traveled for about an hour to Maropeng, which is the official visitor center for the Cradle of Humankind world heritage site. Our location was once completely submerged under water about two billion years ago, and now stands consisting of 13 Paleontological sites. Positioned on the Gauteng Province of South Africa, Maropeng houses a museum dedicated to the early history of human activity dating back over three million years ago. In the language of Setswana, Maropeng translates to ‘returning to the place of origin,’ which explains why it is the location for nearly 40% of the world’s human ancestral fossils. Upon entering the museum, our class ventured back in time to not only the place we were born, but also a place where we are considered equals, regardless of race or color.
We began our journey through the museum accompanied by something we’ve been seeing a lot of since our arrival in Johannesburg: rain. Additionally, we were greeted by our on-site tour guide named Maropeng (a little too coincidental). Our adventure started with a spinning boat ride through a small cavern displaying how the planet was developed through four elements: wind, water, fire, and earth. We then made our way through a vortex tunnel that signifies the Big Bang Theory, which explains what scientists believed happened at the beginning of the universe. After we overcame our dizzy spells from the vortex tunnel, we entered an informative portion of the museum that displayed how the Cradle of Humankind came into existence using explanatory visuals, audio components, and interactive activities. We learned how the earth has shifted and changed over time during plate tectonics to create how it stands in the world today. In my opinion, the next portion of displays was the most interesting and relevant to our class here in South Africa. We entered an area described as the pathway to humanity; specifically referencing how human evolution occurred in history. Through the depiction of lifelike models, we discovered the transformation of humans from early primate species to the distinct classification known has Homo sapiens. It was very fascinating to learn that despite our different culturalbackgrounds and ethnicities, our class was able to visit the same location of origination.
The exhibitions at Maropeng also provided our class with a very eye-opening experience through the use of colorful statistics. A specific display showed that South Africa has the highest proportion of people living on less than one dollar per day; this means that over 40% of the region’s 190 million people live in poverty. Along our adventure here in South Africa, we have been exposed to both sides of the spectrum in terms of extreme wealth, such as the luxurious beach front mansions of Camps Bay in Cape Town, and disheartening poverty, such as the informal housing in the township in Langa. Using the interactive presentations in the museum we learned that when these two very different lifestyles exist in a society, poverty can often be described as a by-product of wealth.
After learning about how humans came into existence at Maropeng, we quickly indulged in our lunches before traveling to the incredible Sterkfontein Caves to learn where the secrets of our past were revealed. While walking/crawling/squatting through the numerous dark caves, we were able to hear many different stories and learn about the different discoveries that occurred in history. The Sterkfontein Caves were originally founded by Italian miners in the year 1886; various archeologists and professionals were able to utilize the caves innumerable count of fossils to estimate its age of over 20 million years old. Our trip started with the excavation site of the famous discovery of “Little Foot,” which is the name given to the only known fully complete 3.3 million year old fossil hominid skeleton found between the years of 1994 and 1998. After this rare discovery, the Sterkfontein Caves were officially declared to be a world heritage site in 1999. Labeled as a “dead cave,” the various caverns are comprised of mainly dolomite and limestone rock; and regardless of the weather season outside of the caves, the constant temperature is 18 degrees Celsius all year round. During our trip through the caves we were exposed to many different breathtaking views of rock structures and crystallizations of the environmentally created caves. Our adventure took about 45 minutes in total, and we reached a depth of just over 60 meters below the ground level.
Our tour guide during the Sterkfontein Caves revealed to us that the total size of the caves in currently unknown and many areas of the caves have been left undiscovered. Our group was told a chilling tale that occurred during the year 1984, when three South African divers attempted to explore one of the lakes in the chambers of Sterkfontein. During the dive, Peter Verhulsel tried to search an underwater side passage more than 60 meters under water; unfortunately, he never resurfaced and his body was found more than three weeks later in an underwater chamber. As a direct result of this tragedy, dives are no longer permitted in the Sterkfontein Caves and the actual depth of the water remains unknown. Nevertheless, in some cases during the hike the path was not only dark, but challenged us with very small and narrow crawl spaces; however, I am pleased to successfully announce that despite some fears and hesitation, all 33 members of our family were able to complete the entire experience.
Many different aspects of our course of study here in South Africa can be related to our diverse experiences at Maropengand the Sterkfontein Caves; specifically, utilizing an exhibition entitled “The Human Gateway.” Despite having ancestors from all over the world and being extremely different, at the basic level our species are linked and bound together by nine common characteristics. This is very relevant to our lives because regardless of skin color we share the same characteristics such as our ability to walk upright, our complex brains, and our ability to use complex language in order to communicate. We live in a world where generalizations and stereotypes exist and occur every single day; accusations are made that people classified as black are more dangerous or make better athletes, and people classified as white are more intelligent; however, atthe basic historical and fundamental level, we are all the same. Learning about the Apartheid and other racial issues thatoccurred in the past and still occur in South Africa today only seem more ludicrous when at the end of the day, the only actual difference between races is skin color itself. With the realization that we all are members of the same unique species of humans,why do we still label ourselves as being different?
Twitter Summary: Returned to our home in history at the Cradle of Humankind. We enter not as different individuals, but rather as equals with 9 common human characteristics. #SASA13