Today we're at Swartkrans Cave which is one of the most important sites for the study
of human evolution. We're in the heart of an area called the Cradle of Human Kind,
which is a broad area that includes a bunch of cave sites and Swartkrans is probably one
of the most important of those sites.
Part of what I wanted to do as a professor is not just given instruction in the classroom
but actually bring people to these areas in the world where fossils are being found
to show them the evidence firsthand.
To have them appreciate what that evidence is like to hold, to study to curate, to analyze,
just to give them an appreciate that we're connected to the natural world
and we have this evolutionary record just like other animals, other organisms.
That's what's exciting about Swartkrans.
We have the fossils which tells us a lot about anatomy,
how big these things were, their body size.
How male and females were different from one another.
What they ate potentially.
Look at their teeth and look at their skulls.
But also, we can get even deeper into behavior because we have
such a rich archeological record here.
>> Ooh, Look at this one!
>> Oh, wow.
>> That's nice, right?
>> Whoa... That's awesome.
Wow.
>> Hey Kathy.
>> That's a nice one.
You found a prize.
We only have one tiny point tip until now.
My name is Kathleen Kuman.
I'm stone age archeologist.
It's not just holding their bones and trying to interpret who they are physically.
Its understanding their use of the landscape their selection of rocks.
The way they work the rocks.
They're behavior behind it all.
So, you're really getting a glimpse into their minds when you study the early stone tools.
Congratulations Anisa.
>> Thank you.
>> Wow.
>> It was right here.
>> Its so sharp.
>> Its really nice, huh?
Like it was made yesterday.
>> Yeah.
>> One of the most important things to me is situating ourselves in the natural world.
Understanding and appreciating that we are part of the natural world
and we have an evolutionary history just
like every other organism that we share this planet with.
>> This was dug completely by Wisconsin students.
>> And then sometimes you get little bone fragments of megafauna...
>> The undergraduates at UW-Madison participate in this field school are adding to our knowledge
of human evolution that's a remarkable thing to me.
And I know they carry the message of Swartkrans beyond the field school.
We have to appreciate where we come from.
>> This is a rising star property and its very close to Swartkrans, Sterkfontein these caves
that are really well known for fossil sites.
But these other properties nearby also have caves on them
and no one had ever identified fossils in this cave.
But in 2013 Steve Tucker, Rick Hunter.
They were real skinny guys that could get into the very narrow passages of caves.
And they went exploring in caves.
And Steve went into a crack, noticed that he didn't feel the bottom of it
and wondered what was at the bottom.
Slid his way down and at the bottom were fossils.
And that was how the first discovery was made here.
That chamber when we worked here in 2013 would produce more
than 1500 fossil specimens of hominids.
It was the largest discovery that had ever been made on this continent.
One of the biggest ever in the world.
And we found that it was a new species, something we hadn't identified before.
We named it Homo Naledi.
That work just carries on you know.
We're still working in the cave.
There are thousands of bones left underground.
The most important thing that we've learned in the last couple
of years about Homo Naledi is its age.
You know, we, when we found the fossils it looks like a very primitive form of our genus.
We sort of thought they looked the most things that are maybe 2 million years old.
It turns out that these fossils are between 230,000 and 330,000 years ago.
And that to most of our field has just been a complete surprise.
This is something that was very primitive that was very different
from us in its probably social behavior.
But at the same time, it looks like its depositing its dead in this cave.
Right. So, there's something very sophisticated about its social behavior.
You know this is really a fascinating puzzle.
And putting it in that time period has shifted the way we think about our origins.
>> Is it a big one?
My name is Ronald Clarke.
And Swartkrans has been of great significance in the development
of my career over the past 65 years.
Yeah. This is going nicely.
One of the main reasons to learn about our ancestry is that we are humans.
We are unique in the animal kingdom in that we are the only animals
that ask questions about our environment.
How, why, where, when, all aspects of environment,
including outer space and this is called science.
When you're asking a question that is science.
How, what, where, when.
And one of the questions we ask is how did we come to be human?
How is it that we're different from the animals?
And so, we want to go back in the past and see when and where and how we diverged
from the rest of the animal kingdom.
>> And the other deposit that we've worked with through UW is this deposit here.
I've read all of Ron Clarke's papers, all Kathy Kuman's papers and I was intrigued
with what they were telling me about human evolution to actually be able to come
to South Africa and not just meet those people but to work with them, be part of the team
that they're on has been an amazing privilege.
>> Here is where that beautiful paranthropus mandible SK23 came out.
>> So the epitome of my association With Ron Clarke has been realized now that I'm part
of the team that's analyzing the Little Foot Skeleton
which is the most complete australopithecus skeleton ever found.
This is a resting spot of the Little Foot Skeleton.
It's no longer in the ground.
It's been taken out but this is where the skeleton was found.
Its uncomfortable to have to lay on the surface as you're excavating.
But you can see with a difficult sort of excavation this was for those guys.
>> This is a cast of the area in the cave.
We molded it and we cast it.
>> There's plenty of other skeletons that have been called nearly complete.
Things like Lucy and the [inaudible] skeletons.
But in comparison to Little Foot they're not nearly as complete.
And what that will allow us to do is to finally present a fully formed story,
a narrative of the anatomy and adaptations of these animals as a genus.
>> The head of the femur is still in the socket of the pelvis.
>> We have not just a skull and not just bits of the body.
But we have a full skull and we have a complete body.
And that allows us to develop a full picture of this organism's biology.
(laughs) >>It's not really that little.
It was quite a tough, hulking individual.
And it was about this high.
>> So this is a really rare case.
And the time period that we're talking about almost 4 million years ago.
The way forward is just brightly lit because of the completeness of the skeleton.
>> So it's an extraordinary occurrence.
And a very lucky find.
>> Once you see something in a museum like that, you take for granted that it looks
so put together and so well done.
But there's a lot of work and a lot of thinking and discretion that goes
into putting a skeleton together like that.
>> I've been able to clean in here now and exposed.
>> The teeth are looking good.
Yeah.
>> Even every single little evolving trait is incredibly important.
>> Still a beautiful face though.
>> Yeah. It is.
>> Just to know why we are the way that we are.
From you know our opposable thumbs to our complex minds.
Which came a lot later.
I think it's the only way to understand
at a fundamental level how human beings created the world that we live in.
>> We're at Maropeng.
This is the Visitors Center of the World Heritage Site here at the Cradle of Human Kind.
And we're outside the new exhibit of Homo Naledi.
For me it's an emotional experience to come into this and realize that you know this is stuff
that we didn't know about four years ago.
And now everybody in the world who comes to visit this can see these original fossils
for themselves and get that experience.
>>I've been noticing you... while I was standing outside
It's just so much fun to see people engaging with this, connecting to it.
I've stood in here and watched as people come through.
You know school groups and they're just chattering and excited to see the bones.
>> This is the largest fossil hominid exhibit that's ever been staged in the world.
So, take your time but if you guys have questions I'll be happy to answer some.
>> What does that mean hominid?
>> But also people who are coming through
and they've traveled here from Europe, from the United States..
>> Thank you.
>> And they're experiencing this African heritage that connects them to this place.
It's just amazing.
>> Can you tell where they died?
>> We're all different from each other.
And there's no characteristic that you can point at and say everyone in the world has that.
There's no genetic thing that everyone in the world has.
That's no physical thing that everyone in the world has.
If you just look and see what is it that all of us have in common, the one thing that defines us
as humans it is this history, this common heritage.
We've come from a story.
And it's up to us from a science side to identify what that story is.
And to come to an appreciation of those factors that all of us have come from.
Because that shared heritage is what we all will have going to the future.
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