December 8, 2005
By Lucille Davie
PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki nodded his head in understanding as he and his entourage were led around the exhibits, now and then breaking out in laughter at a comment from the experts around him.
It was the official opening yesterday of the Cradle of Humankind Maropeng Visitor Centre near the Sterkfontein Cave in the north-west of Gauteng, and it was a formal affair.
Maropeng is a Setswana word meaning "the place where we once lived".
Mbeki was accompanied on the tour of the site by Minister of Arts and Culture Pallo Jordan, Minister of Science and Technology Mosibudi Mangena and Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa.
Several hundred people were invited to the opening, among them ministers, deputy ministers, members of parliament, MECs, MPLs, executive mayors, professor emeritus Phillip Tobias, chancellor of Wits University Loyiso Nongxa, chairperson of Maropeng a'Afrika Leisure board Herman Mashaba, ambassadors and other diplomats.
"Maropeng Visitor Centre is our own 21st century humble contribution to record for posterity the story of evolutionary human biology and geography as it unfolds," said Mbeki.
The completed tumulus containing an underground lake
The 47 000ha site is where the 2,3 million-year-old Mrs Ples and the 4 million year-old Little Foot, a complete skeleton still to be excavated, have been found at the Sterkfontein Cave. About 3 million years of human activity have taken place in and around the cradle, including man's earliest-known mastery of fire.
About 40 percent of all the world's human ancestor fossils have been found at the cradle, which was proclaimed a World Heritage Site in 1999.
"We have been truly blessed to be the custodians of such a heritage. Through Maropeng, a ... tourism public-private partnership project, we offer the people of the world the opportunity to connect with the golden chain of life and to our human evolution," Mbeki continued.
About R167-million was set aside to development Maropeng and the Sterkfontein Cave site, from the full R347-million Blue IQ project. The private sector contributed R20-million.
Jordan said the site belonged to us all. More than that, it "belongs to the peoples of the world".
The minister spoke of the unique contribution that Africa had made to the world. "This continent shaped, in many respects, the world that we know today."
Shilowa explained that the site had already received three awards: an award from the British guild of travel writers for best new tourism project worldwide, and awards for best civil engineering and building contractors and best private-public partnership.
Maropeng is about 10 kilometres north-west of the Sterkfontein Cave. It is constructed to resemble an ancient burial mound, called a tumulus, sitting atop a ridge and overlooking the Magaliesberg mountains. Visitors enter to the sound of rushing water, and look down on a lake, the first exhibit demonstrating the elements that make up our world: earth, fire, water and air.
Once down at the lake, visitors board a boat and sail through a tunnel, experiencing volcanoes, fire, rumbles and steam in an exploration of how the earth came about 4 billion years ago.
On exiting the lake, visitors then stroll down an underground avenue of the history of the earth and humankind, interacting with bold exhibits in which they can pick up a telephone and dial a mammoth or a rhino or a quagga, explore DNA, understand fossils, or read about bipedalism.
There is fascinating footage of Dr Ron Clarke standing next to the still-to-be-excavated skeleton of Little Foot, embedded in the depths of Sterkfontein Cave.
Once through the exhibits, where real fossils will be displayed, visitors walk out on to a patio with a view of the mountains. There is a take-away restaurant and they can sit, relax and take in the place where early people roamed.
A walk back to the tumulus, which contains the Tumulus Restaurant, offers another, broader view of the site.
Maropeng also has a 5 000-seat outdoor amphitheatre, a craft market and several gift shops and restaurants. Still to be built is a conference facility for 500 delegates, a luxury boutique hotel and hostel accommodation for 120 learners.
The car park is distinguished by two footprints: that of Mbeki, and of Kofi Annan, the secretary-general of the United Nations, made in 2002. Future visits by other heads of state will also be marked by footprints obtained from them.
Development of the entire area, including infrastructure, is a R347-million Blue IQ project. It will be managed by Maropeng a'Afrika Leisure. A public-private partnership, it involves Wits University and the Gauteng province; the national government has made available land and money, and in return receives a share of the operating success.
It is expected that half-a-million visitors will visit the area annually.
The nearby Sterkfontein Cave site was opened in March this year. Here, visitors can descend 60 metres into the cave. At that complex there is also a restaurant, auditorium, souvenir shop, hominid exhibition hall with interactive exhibits, a wooden walkway from which excavations can be viewed and a look-in at the laboratory where scientists examine the fossil finds.
"I would ask you to be very still," Mbeki concluded. "If we are very still, we will hear, if we really listen, these rocks and stones speaking to us today. They are the voices of our distant ancestors, who still lie buried in them - the voices of my ancestors and yours. You see, in Africa, things are seldom what they seem. And so I would say to everyone, welcome home."
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