We are one diverse species across the globe, with our roots in Africa. Some of the oldest rock art in the world has been discovered in Southern Africa.Īll of humanity shares an African heritage. Homo sapiens, the species to which we all belong, evolved in Africa approximately 200 000 years ago.Īfrica ignited humankind’s imagination. Our ancestors were able to use and control fire at least one million years ago in the Cradle of Humankind. One of the World Heritage Sites, the Cradle of Humankind is a historic site and a part of a large archaeological area in northwest of Johannesburg. The first stone tools were made and used in Africa, at least 2.6-million years ago. Many significant fossil finds have been made in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, including the famous fossils “Mrs Ples” and “Little Foot”. Hominids – the ancestors of modern humans – first emerged about seven million years ago, in Africa. This is where our collective umbilical cord lies buried. South Africa has yielded fossils of some of the earliest known dinosaurs, dating back at least 200-million years.įossils of our distant mammal-like ancestors, which lived more than 200-million years ago, have also been found in South Africa.Īfrica is the birthplace of humankind. Our journey begins in South Africa, where fossils of some of the earliest known life forms on Earth have been found. The Cradle of Humankind Site comprises a strip of a dozen dolomitic limestone caves containing the fossillised remains of ancient forms of animals, plants and. Life first emerged about 3.8-billion years ago. The Earth is about 4.6-billion years old. Where Is the Birthplace of Humankind South Africa and East Africa Both Lay Claims The limestone caves and sinkholes hidden in the rolling hills an hour northwest of Johannesburg have yielded a. Study lead Darryl Granger’s team used accelerator mass spectrometry to measure radioactive nuclides in the rocks, as well as geologic mapping to help date the Australopithecus-bearing sediments at Sterkfontein, Purdue University said in the news release.The universe was formed about 14-billion years ago. “The new dates now help us to place such evolutionary developments more accurately in time,” Kuman said. So the debate on the origins of modern humans has been reignited by this study. It added that the research team used new technology developed at the university to date the South African fossils, which scientists had previously theorized were between 2 million and 2.5 million years old. Lucy or Dinkinesh and her species, Australopithecus africanus, hail back to about 3.9 million years old, according to a news release by Purdue University. Kuman, a professor emeritus at the University of the Witwatersrand, added that the new dates “show that these South African hominid fossils were largely contemporary with species in East Africa such as Australopithecus afarensis and are unlikely to be their descendants, better revealing the more complex nature of how species evolved in the past.” “Because Sterkfontein has the largest concentration of Australopithecus fossils from an individual site in Africa, it has been a critical part of the research and debates on our ancestry,” professor Kathleen Kuman, who was part of the research team led by Purdue University, told NBC News on Wednesday. Hominins include humans and our ancestral relatives, but not the other great apes. T he Cradle of Humankind is one of 8 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in South Africa. The ancient hominin fossils were discovered in the Sterkfontein Caves, 30 miles northwest of Johannesburg, that form part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Cradle of Humankind. The findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal suggest that they are between 3.4 million to 3.6 million years old - older than Ethiopia’s renowned Lucy or Dinkinesh fossil that was discovered in 1974 and dated back to 3.2 million years. Fossils of early human ancestors found in a South African cave system may be 1 million years older than first thought, according to a study published Monday.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |