Photos: Explore Sterkfontein Caves
Sunny skies have been forecast across the Cradle of Humankind this weekend, so families in search of a fun outdoor adventure should pack some comfortable shoes and head to Maropeng and Sterkfontein in our UNESCO World Heritage site.
An hour’s drive from Johannesburg and Pretoria, the Sterkfontein Caves are world famous for their fossil finds and a well-known tourist destination. The site is now also home to a top restaurant, conferencing facilities and a boardwalk past the excavation site where world-acclaimed fossils have been discovered.
As you don your hard hat and step down into the cool, dim light of the caves, you'll feel very much like a time traveller, guided on a trip into the past by a very knowledgeable guide.
Scientists have discovered many hominid and other animal fossils, dating back millions of years in these caves. The most important and most famous of these fossils are “Mrs Ples”, a 2.1-million-year-old Australopithecus skull, and “Little Foot”, an almost complete Australopithecus skeleton that was confirmed this month to be about 3.67-million years old.
These fossils, both found in the Sterkfontein Caves in the Cradle of Humankind, tell us much about the precursors of modern humans, Homo sapiens.
The caves at Sterkfontein were formed in dolomitic limestone over millions of years. They began to form as early as 20-million years ago. Most caves – including Sterkfontein – are formed by the dissolving action of weak acidic rainwater, which seeps into the soluble rock through the soil.
The first adult fossil of this hominid, was found at Sterkfontein by Dr Robert Broom in 1936. A well-known example is “Mrs Ples” (Sts 5), which was discovered by Broom and John Robinson in 1947.
The Sterkfontein Caves are owned by the University of the Witwatersrand, whose scientists have been responsible for the main excavations of the World Heritage Site.
