Maropeng Earthcache EarthCache
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(not chosen)
Related Web Page
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
Maropeng Earth Cache will take you to the Sterkfontein Caves, the world famous fossil site where the legendary Little Foot and Mrs. Ples were discovered.
The world denotes the universal relevance of the Cradle of Humankind, the location of Maropeng. It is an ancestral home to all people, no matter what colour, culture or creed they are. Maropeng means “returning to the place of origin” in Setswana, the local indigenous language in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site.
Africa gave birth in her steamy jungles and great rift valleys and along her pristine coastlines to humankind. You and I, and all our ancestors, can trace back our bloodlines to our common ancestry in the heat, dust and beauty of this great continent. Our path to humanity was a slow and dangerous one, spanning more than 6 million years. Our ancestors were australopithecines such as Little Foot and Mrs. Ples, who lived in the area around the Cradle of Humankind between 4 million and 2 million years ago. They were smaller than us and covered with hair. They walked upright, but were better at climbing than us, and lived in the forest, protecting their young as best as they could from powerful predators like giant sable-toothed cats and long-legged hunting hyenas, and the elements, with little more for shelter than tree canopies. Often they failed, and predators would catch them and their young, chewing their bones and leaving fragments which washed down into caverns, later to provides clues about where we came from.
A visit to Sterkfontein, in the Cradle of Humankind is a step back into the past, and to ponder our origins as a species. What makes us so different from the other animals that have inhabited this planet? Why have we survived when so many others have died out? How do we know these thinks? What are our origins and what does the future holds?
To qualify for a log you have to vist Sterkfontein and research the following and provide your answers via Email, logs not adhering to this requirement will be deleted.
Take a tour through the Exhibition Hall / Museum and find the answers to the following questions.
Q1: Sterkfontein Caves is one of many Palaeontological sites in the Cradle of Humankind. How many sites make up the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site?
Q2: Althrough Sterkfontein is best known for the hundreds of fossils of early Hominids discovered, it also yielded thousands of animal bones representing a great variety of species. List at least three of the six listed species displayed at the cabinet.
As you have researched the Exhibition Hall / Museum take a stroll down to the entrance to the caves. On your way you will find a number of display boards on the history of life.
Q3: A fossilised skeleton of a 2.6 million year old Australophitherus Africanus was found first in the Sterkfontein Caves. What was this skeleton named?
The Exhibition Hall and the easy walk down to the cave entrance can be accomplished even by handicapped persons, no need to take the physical cave tour but it is highly recommended for the more adventurous. The tour operates daily between 09:00 and 16:00 hours (except Christmas Day) and takes just over one hour.
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)