The Cradle of Humankind, Gauteng, 7 December 2005
Honourable Minister of Arts and Culture, Pallo Jordan,
Honourable Minister of Science and Technology, Mosibudi Mangena,
Honourable Ministers and Deputy Ministers,
Honourable Premier of Gauteng, Mbhazima Shilowa,
Honourable Members of Parliament,
Honourable MECs, MPLs and Executive Mayors,
Vice Chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand, Professor Loyiso Nongxa,
Chairperson of Maropeng a'Afrika Leisure Board, Herman Mashaba,
Professor Emeritus Anatomy and Human Biology, University of the Witwatersrand, Philip Tobias,
Your Excellencies, Members of the Diplomatic Corps,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Fellow South Africans:
I am truly delighted to address you on this very important occasion, the opening of the internationally-acclaimed, Maropeng Visitor Centre at the Cradle of Humankind within the Valley of our Ancestors.
It is with great joy that the people of South Africa today honour a World Heritage Site with an award-winning Visitor Centre, which, in itself, is destined to become a world class tourist destination.
Maropeng and the Sterkfontein Valley are unique. For that timeless, tranquil and undulating landscape evokes memories of riverine forests and woodland - indeed of the place we came from. Yet, at the same time, the Cradle of Humankind is the World's biggest archaeological library filled with the largest collection of human fossils found anywhere in the world, among them the legendary Mrs Ples and Little Foot.
We have been truly blessed to be the custodians of such a heritage. Through Maropeng, a R189 million tourism public-private sector partnership project, we offer the people of the world the opportunity to connect with the golden chain of life and to our human evolution.
And what a kaleidoscopic canvas of life has emerged since the Universe's Big Bang and the creation of Mother Earth and the formation of the oldest continents, Gondwanaland and Laurasia from where the ancient mountainland of Barberton as well as Sterkfontein and Maropeng descend.
One of the founding fathers of modern geology, Sir Charles Lyell, reminded us in the 19th century that we are just "a mere point in space" and time. He wrote:
"[A]lthough we are mere sojourners on the surface of the planet, chained to a mere point in space, enduring but for a moment of time, the human mind is not only enabled to number worlds beyond the unassisted ken of a mortal eye, but to trace the events of indefinite ages before the creation of our race, and is not even withheld from penetrating into the dark secrets of the ocean, or the interior of the solid globe; free, like the spirit which the poet described as animating the universe,
- ire per omnes
Terrasque, tractusque maris, coelumque profundum.
'To go through all lands, and the tracts of the ocean, and the boundless heaven."
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In Africa, things are almost never what they seem. Those who appropriated history before we claimed it back, could not countenance the possibility that human life could come from so contrary a continent.
The geological monuments and the magnificent multimedia exhibition at the Cradle of Humankind are a fitting tribute to many of our eminent scientists some of whom are present with us today, including the doyen of paleontology, Professor Philip Tobias, whom we congratulate on his 80th birthday celebrated on 14th October.
A year before his birth, another child - the renowned Taung Child, a 2.5 million or so years old - was found by lime quarry worker, M de Bruyn.
Professor Raymond Dart, who took "Man/Ape of Southern Africa" to the scientific world in 1925, is undoubtedly the one to whom we owe an untold debt of gratitude for his legacy to the study of evolutionary human biology and life.
It was surely Professor Dart's pioneering spirit and his supreme courage in championing the human traits of the Taung Child that spurred other sterling efforts in the field of palaeontology and palaeoanthropology so that we can now boldly proclaim that the African continent is the cradle of humanity.
The Cradle of Humankind which embraces Sterkfontein, Coopers, Swartkrans, Drimolen and Gondolin, where over 35 percent of the world's hominid fossils have been found, has been nurtured and sustained for the past decades by outstanding and visionary scientists such as Robert Broom, John Robinson, Alan Hughes and so many others.
And as we closed the last century and millennium, we were overjoyed by the discovery of the most complete and preserved fossil skeleton, nearly four million years old, of the ape-man, Australopithecus Africanus, or Little Foot.
For Ron Clarke, Phologo Motsumi and Nkwane Molefe, the journey of discovery is not yet over as they painstakingly unearthed, from hard stalagmite, the remains of one of our earliest ancestors, which, less than a decade ago, were presumed to be antelope, monkey and other animal remains.
It was fitting, therefore, that Charles Darwin in 1871 entitled his book, The Descent of Man, when he suggested that our early progenitors lived on the African continent.
For deep in the bowels of the dolomitic caves of Sterkfontein or descending into the ancient sedimentary traps of the Great Rift Valley lies the story of humankind. 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.
Indeed, we continue to marvel with reverence and wonder at the unravelling of the eternal mystery of life here and at other African World Heritage Sites including Hadar in Ethiopia, Lake Turkana in Kenya, and Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania by luminary and distinguished scientists.
More recently in 2002, the discovery of the 7 million-year old skull of Sahelanthropus tchadensis in Chad and homo floriensis and fossils in Indonesia and elsewhere, continue to astound us as many other scientists break the code of where we have come from.
Ladies and gentlemen:
The Maropeng Visitor Centre, which we open today, is a testimony to the fact that Africa is not what it seems. When you approach the building, it looks like an ancient hill, a tumulus. You journey on an underground lake. You are transported back to the beginning of time, amidst an iceberg, a windstorm, a waterfall and fire, which Mrs Ples controlled in this ancient place.
Then you journey along the path which our earliest ancestors took. You see their struggles for survival, their tenacity, their will to survive in the most hostile of environments. You look in wonder at the beginnings of technology; at the dawn of spirituality, at the birth of art and creativity; at the start of the long journey which brought us to where we are today.
And then when you exit the building, you are confronted by the possibilities of our future. The ancient hill, which we entered, has transformed into a marvel of concrete, steel and glass pointing us beyond our present to the skies above.
In the exhibition space, our aim is also to showcase replicas of Lucy, Mrs Ples, the Taung Child and perhaps many other fossils and pre-historic art from around the world.
And so, let us join hands with Tennyson's Father Hesper to cast that watchful eye as we record our life in the golden chain:
"Father Hesper, Father Hesper, watch, watch, ever and aye,
Looking under silver hair with a silver eye,
Father, twinkle not thy steadfast sight;
Kingdoms lapse, and climates change, and races die;
Honour comes with mystery;
Hoarded wisdom brings delight.
Number, tell them over and number
How many the mystic fruittree holds,"
(Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Hesperides, taken from Oxford Anthology of English Literature (Oxford), P828)
This ancient place holds the memory of our human journey. And because it does, we want to make this place a repository of human memory for the past, for the present and also for the future. What you will see taking place here in the next few years is that the 47,000 hectare site will be a demarcated building on the African concept of Isivivane.
To demarcate the site, we will be calling for communities worldwide, when they visit the site, to add a stone to the Isivivane monument, to record that they have journeyed to this special place and that they are journeying onward.
Their stone will symbolize a memory of our human journey, a memory to remind those who visit after them of where we have come from.
In this way, we wish to record and celebrate both the achievements and the tragedies never to be repeated in our human journey, not only in South Africa, but also memories of Africa and the world over.
So, instead of hoping that Hesperides, the evening star, will "watch, watch, ever and aye", we will, through Maropeng, unravel, record and safeguard the mystic human tree.
I would ask you to be very still. 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!
This home, my home, your home, Maropeng Visitor Centre, is an African monument to the wonder of the human species, in all its beauty and variety; in all its tragedy and glory; in all its wonder and complexity. It is a monument to the entire human race.
I wish to congratulate the Premier of Gauteng, the Gauteng Provincial Government, staff, the scientists, the donors, the construction and technical teams, the tour guides and everyone for your excellent work in bringing the Maropeng project to fruition. It is a proud day for our nation and indeed for the entire planet.
Thank you.