Sipho Michael Makhele
Finding fossils is a family business
Like several of his colleagues, Sipho Michael Makhele has family connections with the Sterkfontein Caves.
“My father, Isaac Makhele, used to work here. I used to come here during school holidays and see him work,” says Makhele, who works as a fossil excavator and data capturer at Sterkfontein.
In addition, his older brother, Papi Kekana, studied geology and Makhele would sneak into classes with him – a clear harbinger of his future career.
“Then an opportunity came in 2004 when the visitor centre opened, and I got a job as a guide,” says Makhele, who was given basic training in subjects such as geology and anthropology for that position.
When fossil technician posts opened up in 2013, he leapt at the fresh opportunity. Like his colleagues, he just lives for finding special, unexpected things in the breccia that they painstakingly investigate. The secret, he says, is perseverance.
“There is much exciting work here,” Makhele continues. “Even if it’s a piece of bone, it gives you hope and keeps you going.”
Sterkfontein, he says, is unique: “It is important because it’s the only place where one can witness what has happened, where you can find fossils and the public can visit. People all over the world come to witness what we have.”
And with good reason, because “there is proof that humanity began here: Little Foot and Mrs Ples”.
For role models, Makhele cites Professor Dominic Stratford, who heads the Sterkfontein project, as a great teacher (“every time he comes here, he teaches us something”), and master preparators Kgame Abel Molepolle and Moyagabo Andrew Phaswana, who produce world-class casts of important fossils (“they are the next level”).
Indeed, Makhele intends to follow in Molepolle and Phaswana’s footsteps. He is already learning the scarce skills of preparing fossils and making precise casts from them, to be shared with educational institutions and museums the world over so that the story of our human origins can be more fully and vividly told.