January 18, 2010

By Itumeleng Makgobathe

‘Mrs Ples’

David Smith, Africa correspondent for UK-based paper the Guardian, recently took a trip to the Sterkfontein Caves in the Cradle of Humankind, in search of the Garden of Eden.

Smith’s trip was inspired by South African journalist and author Rian Malan’s response to being asked how he spent an ideal day in his home city. He answered that he often took visitors to the Sterkfontein Caves, a world heritage site about an hour out of town.

Smith writes: “In search of paradise, I set out to the Sterkfontein Caves, set in an area named ... the Cradle of Humankind.”

Perhaps Malan was right in taking visitors to the caves because, as Smith soon found out, the splendid caves hold many hidden treasures.

Of one of the most spectacular, he writes: “One of the star finds at Sterkfontein was ‘Mrs Ples’. The 2.5-million-year-old perfectly preserved skull has been identified as an intermediate species between ape and human.”

To read more about David Smith’s trip to the Cradle of Humankind, click here.