Cradle of Humankind - wikipedia Cradle of Humankind For other uses, see Cradle of Humankind ( disambiguation ). Cradle of Humankind UNESCO World Heritage Site Official name Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa Location South Africa 25 ° 55 ′ 07 '' S 27 ° 47 ′ 14 '' E ﻿ / ﻿ 25.91853 ° S 27.78717 ° E ﻿ / - 25.91853 ; 27.78717 Criteria Cultural : ( iii ), ( iv ) Reference 915 Inscription 1999 ( 23rd Session ) Extensions 2005 Location of Cradle of Humankind ( edit on Wikidata ) The Cradle of Humankind is a paleoanthropological site about 50 km ( 31 mi ) northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa in the Gauteng province. Declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1999, the site currently occupies 47,000 hectares ( 180 sq mi ) and it contains a complex of limestone caves. The registered name of the site in the list of World Heritage Sites is Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa. The Sterkfontein Caves were the site of the discovery of a 2.3 - million - year - old fossil Australopithecus africanus ( nicknamed `` Mrs. Ples '' ), found in 1947 by Robert Broom and John T. Robinson. The find helped corroborate the 1924 discovery of the juvenile Australopithecus africanus skull known as the `` Taung Child '', by Raymond Dart, at Taung in the North West Province of South Africa, where excavations still continue. Nearby the site, but not in the site, the Rising Star Cave system contains the Dinaledi Chamber ( chamber of stars ), in which were discovered fifteen fossil skeletons of an extinct species of hominin, provisionally named Homo naledi. Sterkfontein alone has produced more than a third of early hominid fossils ever found prior to 2010. The Dinaledi Chamber contains over 1500 H. naledi fossils, the most extensive discovery of a single hominid species ever found in Africa. Contents 1 Etymology 2 History of discoveries 2.1 Sites 3 Geological context 4 Visitor centres 5 See also 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External links Etymology The name Cradle of Humankind reflects the fact that the site has produced a large number of ( as well as some of the oldest ) hominin fossils ever found, some dating back as far as 3.5 million years ago. History of discoveries Human timeline view discuss edit - 10 -- -- - 9 -- -- - 8 -- -- - 7 -- -- - 6 -- -- - 5 -- -- - 4 -- -- - 3 -- -- - 2 -- -- - 1 -- -- 0 -- Human - like apes Nakalipithecus Ouranopithecus Sahelanthropus Orrorin Ardipithecus Australopithecus Homo habilis Homo erectus Neanderthal Homo sapiens ← Earlier apes ← LCA - Gorilla separation ← Possibly bipedal ← LCA - Chimpanzee separation ← Earliest bipedal ← Earliest stone tools ← Earliest exit from Africa ← Earliest fire use ← Earliest in Europe ← Earliest cooking ← Earliest clothes ← Modern speech ← Modern humans l i s o n l i o n i o n o m i n i d s Axis scale : millions of years ago. Also see : Life timeline and Nature timeline In 1935, Robert Broom found the first ape - man fossils at Sterkfontein and began work at this site. In 1938, a young schoolboy, Gert Terrblanche, brought Raymond Dart fragments of a skull from nearby Kromdraai which later were identified as Paranthropus robustus. Also in 1938, a single ape - man tooth was found at the Cooper 's site between Kromdraai and Sterkfontein. In 1948, the Camp - Peabody Expedition from the United States worked at Bolts Farm and Gladysvale looking for fossil hominids but failed to find any. Later in 1948, Robert Broom identified the first hominid remains from Swartkrans cave. In 1954, C.K. Brain began working at sites in the Cradle, including Cooper 's Cave. He soon would initiate his three - decade work at Swartkrans cave ; it would result in the recovery of the second - largest sample of hominid remains from the Cradle. The oldest controlled use of fire by Homo erectus was also discovered at Swartkrans and dated to over 1 million years ago. In 1966, Phillip Tobias began his excavations of Sterkfontein which are still continuing and are the longest continuously running fossil excavations in the world. In 1991, Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand discovered the first hominid specimens from the Gladysvale site making this the first new early hominid site to be discovered in South Africa in 48 years. In 1994, Andre Keyser discovered fossil hominids at the site of Drimolen. In 1997, Kevin Kuykendall and Colin Menter of the University of the Witwatersrand found two fossil hominid teeth at the site of Gondolin. Also in 1997, the near - complete Australopithecus skeleton of `` Little Foot '', dating to around 3.3 million years ago ( although more recent dates suggest it is closer to 2.5 million years ago ), was discovered by Ron Clarke. In 2001, Steve Churchill of Duke University and Lee Berger found early modern human remains at Plovers Lake. Also in 2001, the first hominid fossils and stone tools were discovered in - situ at Coopers. In 2008, Lee Berger discovered the partial remains of two hominids ( Australopithecus sediba ) in the Malapa Fossil Site that lived between 1.78 and 1.95 million years ago. Australopithecus africanus ( reconstruction ) In October 2013, Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand commissioned geologist Pedro Boshoff to investigate cave systems in the Cradle of Humankind for the express purpose of discovering more fossil hominin sites. Cavers Rick Hunter and Steven Tucker discovered hominid fossils in a previously unexplored area of the Rising Star / Westminster Cave System assigned site designation UW - 101. In November 2013, Lee Berger led a joint expedition of the University of the Witwatersrand and National Geographic Society to the Rising Star Cave System near Swartkrans. In just three weeks of excavation, the six - woman international team of advance speleological scientists ( K. Lindsay Eaves, Marina Elliott, Elen Feuerriegel, Alia Gurtov, Hannah Morris, and Becca Peixotto ), chosen for their paleoanthropological and caving skills, as well as their small size, recovered over 1,200 specimens of a presently unidentified fossil hominin species. The site is still in the process of being dated. In September 2015, Lee Berger and the University of Witwatersrand, in collaboration with National Geographic, announced the discovery of a new species of human relative, named Homo naledi, from UW - 101. Most remarkably, besides shedding light on the origins and diversity of our genus, H. naledi also appears to have intentionally deposited bodies of its dead in a remote cave chamber, a behaviour previously thought limited to humans. In the last days of the Rising Star Expedition, cavers Rick Hunter and Steven Tucker discovered additional fossil hominid material in another portion of the cave system. Preliminary excavations at this site, designated UW - 102, have begun and yielded complete hominid fossil material of its own. It is unknown what the relationship of sites 101 and 102 is. Sites Important sites There are more than three dozen fossil - bearing caves in the Cradle of Humankind, including : Bolt 's Farm Cooper 's Cave Drimolen Gladysvale Gondolin Haasgat Kromdraai Makapan valley Malapa Fossil Site Minaars Cave Motsetsi Plovers Lake Rising Star Cave Sterkfontein Swartkrans Wonder Cave Geological context Tumulus building at Maropeng visitors centre The hominin remains at the Cradle of Humankind are found in dolomitic caves and are often encased in a mixture of limestone and other sediments called breccia and fossilised over time. Hominids may have lived all over Africa, but their remains are found only at sites where conditions allowed for the formation and preservation of fossils. Visitor centres On 7 December 2005, the South African President Thabo Mbeki opened the new Maropeng Visitors Centre at the site. See also Cradle of civilisation Dawn of Humanity, a 2015 PBS film Muldersdrift Recent African origin of modern humans References Jump up ^ `` Why is the Cradle of Humankind important ? ''. Jump up ^ `` Maropeng a'Afrika and the Cradle of Humankind ''. maropeng.co.za. Jump up ^ Smith, David ( 15 January 2010 ). `` Visit to the Cradle of Humankind ''. The Guardian. London. Retrieved 20 May 2010. Jump up ^ Wong, Kate ( 10 September 2015 ). `` Mysterious New Human Species Emerges from Heap of Fossils ''. Scientific American. Retrieved 12 September 2015. Jump up ^ Fleminger, David ( 2008 ). The Cradle of Humankind. 30 ° South Publishers. pp. 7 -- 10. ISBN 0 - 9584891 - 3 - 0. Jump up ^ Brain, CK ; Sillen, A ( 1988 ). `` Evidence from the Swartkrans Cave for the earliest use of fire ''. Nature ( 336 ) : 464 : 466. access - date = requires url = ( help ) Jump up ^ Hilton Barber, Brett ; Berger, Lee R ( December 2004 ). Field Guide to the Cradle of Human Kind : Sterkfontein, Swartkrans, Kromdraai and Environs World Heritage Site ( First ed. ). Cape Town : Penguin Random House. p. 75. ISBN 9781770070653. Retrieved 10 September 2016. Jump up ^ `` New Species of Human Discovered in South Africa ''. IFLScience. Jump up ^ Photograph Mark Thiessen, National Geographic. `` This Face Changes the Human Story. But How ? ''. National Geographic. Jump up ^ `` Homo naledi, a new species of the genus Homo from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa ''. eLife. Jump up ^ http://www.wits.ac.za/homonaledi/ Jump up ^ `` Geological and taphonomic context for the new hominin species Homo naledi from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa ''. eLife. Jump up ^ `` Rising Star Expedition ''. Jump up ^ `` Scientists bag more than 1 000 fossils at Cradle ' treasure trove ' ''. Jump up ^ `` Johannesburg Update ''. Jump up ^ `` Mbeki opens Maropeng centre ''. News24. 8 December 2005. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Maropeng, which means ' the place where we come from, ' is expected to receive over 500 000 visitors annually, according to the Gauteng provincial government. Further reading L.R. Berger and B. Hilton - Barber, Field Guide to the Cradle of Humankind ( Struik, 2003 ) External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cradle of Humankind. Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Cradle of Humankind. BBC, `` Richest human fossil site found in South Africa '', 28 November 2013 National Geographic, Rising Star Expedition Sterkfontein and Maropeng visitor attractions website Maropeng -- The Cradle of Humankind Official Website UNESCO -- Fossil Hominid Sites of Sterkfontein, Swartkrans, Kromdraai, and Environs Cradle of Humankind Map Palaeo Tours -- Scientist - led tours to the `` Cradle '' Human Timeline ( Interactive ) -- Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History ( August 2016 ). Cradle of Humankind Sites Bolt 's Farm Cooper 's Cave Drimolen Gladysvale Gondolin Haasgat Kromdraai Makapan Valley Malapa Minaars Cave Motsetsi Plovers Lake Rising Star Cave Sterkfontein Swartkrans Wonder Cave Fossils Australopithecus africanus Taung Child Mrs. Ples Little Foot Australopithecus sediba Paranthropus robustus Homo naledi Homo gautengensis Anthropology Scientists Lee Berger C.K. Brain Robert Broom H.B.S. Cooke Ronald J. Clarke Raymond Dart Andre Keyser John T. Robinson Phillip V. Tobias Expeditions Rising Star Expedition Underground Astronauts World Heritage Sites in South Africa For official site names, see each article or the List of World Heritage Sites in South Africa. Cape Floral Region Protected Areas Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa Cradle of Humankind Makapan Valley Taung Child iSimangaliso Wetland Park Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape Robben Island uKhahlamba / Drakensberg Park Vredefort Dome ǀXam and ǂKhomani heartland Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cradle_of_Humankind&oldid=821806480 '' Categories : Geography of Gauteng Paleoanthropological sites World Heritage Sites in South Africa Prehistoric Africa Tourist attractions in Johannesburg Fossil parks Paleontology in South Africa Hidden categories : Pages using citations with accessdate and no URL EngvarB from June 2017 Use dmy dates from June 2017 Articles using Infobox World Heritage Site with missing Location map template Articles with WHS infoboxes completely from Wikidata Pages using div col with deprecated parameters Talk Contents About Wikipedia Wikivoyage Afrikaans Беларуская Català Čeština Dansk Deutsch Español Euskara فارسی Français Galego 한국어 Hrvatski Italiano עברית ქართული Lietuvių मैथिली മലയാളം Nederlands नेपाली 日本 語 Norsk Occitan Português Română Русский Simple English Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Türkçe Українська Tiếng Việt 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 22 January 2018, at 19 : 12. 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Question: in which province is the cradle of humankind
Answer: The Cradle of Humankind is a paleoanthropological site about 50 km (31 mi) northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa in the Gauteng province