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About

The Sterkfontein and Swartkrans Caves are globally significant heritage sites, known internationally for their fundamental contributions to the field of palaeoanthropology. An active research program continues at both sites while exciting historical collections yielded from previous excavations represent some of the most widely studied and published hominin materials

 

In addition, Sterkfontein has been the only publicly accessible large cave in the Cradle of Humankind for many years and attracts between 80,000 and 100,000 visitors a year for the cave tour and small museum. It is a major tourist destination in Gauteng and hosts tens of thousands

of school learners a year for tours of the caves.

 

Since 2001, the tourist operations at the Sterkfontein Caves were operated by Maropeng as part of the Cradle of Humankind UNESCO World Heritage Site interpretation centre. As of April 1, 2024, following the optimal reconfiguration of the partnership, Wits, through its Faculty of Science,  is now responsible for all research and visitor operations at the Sterkfontein and Swartkrans Caves.

 

The research led, public facing entity will serve as a heritage, research and science communication hub for Wits in the Cradle of Humankind, hosting research field trips, field schools, workshops and researchers from Wits and international institutions studying the diverse and ancient Cradle landscape, science communications, museumology, and forensic anthropology in a dynamic public-facing environment. No similar facility exists in the Cradle of Humankind.

 

Meet the Team

 

MANAGEMENT

Job Kibii - Head: Sterkfontein Caves

Ntobeko Mbuyisa - Operations Manager

Dominic Stratford - Associate Professor (Archaeology)

GUIDES

TECHNICAL TEAMS

RESEARCH PERMIT HOLDERS

Kenneth Mawete

Lucas Sekowe

Dominic Stratford

 Martina Van Adrichem

Andrew Phaswana

Matt Caruana

Mpho Malogadihlare

Abel Molepolle

Recognise Sambo

Trevor Buthelezi

Sipho Makhele

Maryke Horn
 

Itumeleng Molefe

  

STERKFONTEIN THROUGH TIME

Sterkfontein Caves is a treasure trove of history, preserving evidence of human evolution, changing environments, and the tools and creatures that shaped our ancient world. Explore the story of Sterkfontein through its rich and revealing past.

  1. 1896
  2. 1936
  3. 1956
  4. 1966
  5. 1991
  6. 1994
  7. 2000
  8. 2022

  1. Our Early Beginnings

    1896

    In 1896, Guglielmo Martinaglia first blasted int the Sterkfontein Caves to extract the pure calcium carbonate stalactites, stalagmites and flowstones that filled parts of the caves and was being used by various industries in the rapidly growing Johannesburg. Through the 1920s and 1930s, lime-mining activity had become widespread in the area. During this time, anyone could visit the mining areas around the caves and collect fossils that were thrown away. Large dumps of the unwanted cemented cave sediment (breccia) that contained fossils were left behind.

  2. Collection of Fossils

    1936

    In 1936, In 1936, inspired by the discovery of the Taung Child by Raymond Dart in 1924 (published in 1925) from a similar type of cave in similar geology and uncovered through the same type of mining, Robert Broom, on the advise of two of students that collected baboon fossil skulls from Sterkfontein in 1935, visited Sterkfontein in search of hominin fossils. On 17 August 1936, the quarry manager handed Broom the first adult fossil of Australopithecus, similar to the Taung child, Australopithecus africanus. Broom continued collecting fossils at Sterkfontein until mining ended in 1939, only returning in 1947 with John Robinson, who later became Head of Palaeontology at the Transvaal Museum.

  3. Discovery of Middle Stone Age Artefacts

    1956

    Then in 1956, while working on his study of the Transvaal dolomite caves and sediments, CK Brain decided to search for stone tools at Sterkfontein. He discovered some in a prospector’s pit just west of the area studied by Broom and Robinson. Tasked by Robinson to investigate further, archaeologist Revil Mason and Brain excavated between the two areas and discovered that a thick overburden containing much younger Middle Stone Age artefacts covered the breccias. In 1957-58, Robinson excavated the “West Pit” breccia and discovered early Acheulean stone tools, which were for many years the earliest artefacts in Ssouthern Africa.

  4. Excavations at Sterkfontein

    1966

    The current excavations at Sterkfontein were begun in 1966 by Phillip Tobias, Head of the Department of Anatomy at University of the Witwatersrand. Directing the work for him from then until 1991, Alun Hughes spent the first 10 years processing miners’ dumps across the site and excavating overburden. As Alun Hughes progressed from west to east in his work targeting in situ but uncemented ancient cave infill he made a significant hominin discovery in 1976 and then many more from the early 1980s onwards as he excavated the central area of the main excavation site. 

  5. Ron Clarke takes over excavations

    1991

    In 1991, palaeoanthropologist Ron Clarke took over the direction of excavations. He worked not only on hominid anatomy, but he also focused on understanding the complexity of the infills in areas of the site where deposits still could be observed. Clarke identified ancient collapse to a lower cave in an area just west of the main Australopithecus-bearing breccias that was filled with later Oldowan stone tool-bearing sediments, which filtered down in the Name Chamber. The overlying area had also been filled with breccia that was subsequently dated to ~2.2-million years ago.

  6. Clarke Discovers Foot Bones

    1994

    Another milestone occurred in 1994 when Clarke discovered the first four foot bones of the oldest Australopithecus in southern Africa, which were identified from boxes of mixed fossils that were recovered from a miner's dump in the Silberberg Grotto (D20). After finding another eight articulating fossils belonging to the left and right feet and ankles of one individual, Clarke, with the help of Stephen Motsumi and Nkwane Molefe, identified the location of the rest of the near-complete skeleton - the most complete early hominin skeleton yet found anywhere in the world.

  7. Spatial Distribution of Breccias

    2000

    Clarke was aided by archaeologist Kathleen Kuman, and in 2000 they documented this complexity in a schematic fashion, clarifying the spatial distribution of breccias with the early hominids and those with stone tools. Kuman also led study of the artefacts in the 2.2-million-year-old deposits, documenting in 1994 the first Oldowan archaeology in Southern Africa.

  8. Dating of the Massive Breccia

    2022

    It took over 20 years for Clarke and his technicians to excavate, clean and reconstruct a near-complete skeleton with skull, dubbed “Little Foot” by Prof. Tobias, with the first detailed descriptions appearing in 2019. Those deposits were dated in 2015 to ~3.67-million years old, and in 2022 the massive breccia containing almost all other Australopithecus fossils was dated to ~3.4-million years old.

Geological History

The geological history of the Sterkfontein Caves spans 2.5-billion years, all the way back to when the rocks that host the caves formed. Every part of that history is crucial to the type of cave that forms in the Cradle of Humankind, the timing of the opening of the caves to the landscape surface, and how bones and stone tools get into the caves and are preserved.

 

The preservation of fossils is always controlled by the geology, which is why we find so many caves in the Cradle of Humankind. The Cradle is dominated by Dolomite (or dolomitic limestone). This truly ancient rock formed 2.5 billion years ago from sediments accumulated into a shallow inland sea that occupied central northern South Africa. These sediments include evidence of the first photosynthesising life, cyanobacteria that form stromatolites, which were cemented into rock by calcium carbonate over hundreds of millions of years.

 

The dolomites are composed mostly of calcium carbonate (generally called “carbonates” in geology) and they preserve abundant stromatolite structures (domes and columns) – the remnants of the earliest photosynthesising life on Earth, which thrived at this time in our planet’s early history.