World-acclaimed scientists visit Maropeng

By Itumeleng Makgobathe

Maropeng hosted two of the most respected palaeontologists in the world, Chris Stringer and Berhane Asfaw, this week.

Chris Stringer (left) and Berhane Asfaw (right)

Stringer, a British palaeoanthropologist, currently works in the Palaeontology Department at the British Natural History Museum. He is the founder and one of the leading advocates of the Recent African Origin theory concerning human evolution.

Stringer explained what had brought him to Maropeng and said he was impressed by what he saw.

“I was one of the people involved with the original design concept of Maropeng but I never got the chance to see it, so this is my first visit,” he said. He added that he and a colleague, Peter Andrews, were “involved with the scientific and fossil side of the design”. He said Maropeng was a great place.

Asfaw is an Ethiopian palaeontologist who manages the private Rift Valley Research Service and is the co-director of the Middle Awash Research Project in Afar, Ethiopia.

Ethiopia has one of the richest early hominid fossil records in the world, with key fossils such as the partial skeleton of an Australopithecus afarensis nicknamed “Lucy” found in this country.

On the evolution of humans, he said, “Until we get something older and better [than the fossils found in Ethiopia], this is definitively the answer to the question of whether Homo sapiens evolved from Africa.”

Asfaw said Maropeng was “a beautiful place”.

The two scientists recently delivered lectures on human evolution at the University of the Witwatersrand.