The origins of humankind

I am currently in the midst of going through the archival records and creating descriptions for their current holdings. I just happened to take a closer look at an itinerary for a trip made to Monte Carlo for the opening of the World Sports Academy. In one afternoon, NM met with Sugar Ray Leonard and Sylvester Stallone, had lunch with Naomi Campbell, and had dinner with Prince Albert and Eunice Kennedy Shriver!!

This past weekend was a productive one. Professor Duff has an impressive network of friends here in South Africa. On Saturday, her friend Leiza took her, Jill and myself to the “Cradle of HumanKind” at Maropeng. We saw fossils that are two million years old, and have proven that humankind did begin in Africa. We were fortunate to see the world famous original fossil, Mrs. Ples, that was discovered in South Africa in 1947 by Dr. Robert Broom. We also saw the Taung Child fossil, which people tell me is also a significant archaeological find.

That afternoon, we visited the Sterkfontein Caves where the fossil of “Little Foot” still lies embedded. Yep, that’s right, I was crawling around caves with Professor Duff. I was actually crawling in places and it proved to be a bit of a work out. Upon leaving the caves, we discovered it had rained and we were greeted by a magnificent rainbow: a nice way to end the day.

On Sunday, we visited the Origins Centre at Witwatersrand University. We had a four hour and fifteen minute tour with tour guide ‘Vera.’ She told us that we had broken her previous best record of three hours! Vera is a retired Librarian who worked for many years in Soweto, and she proved to have a passionate interest in South African history. We had dinner at an Indian restaurant, which was followed by a tour of a market in the Indian section of town. It was a small, but incredibly busy market. All in all, it was a great weekend.

Taung Child