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Those of us who studied anthropology in the latter half of the 20th century most likely learned that the birthplace of humankind was East African countries such as Tanzania and Kenya. But for much of that same period, the apartheid regime in South Africa largely prohibited archaeological excavations, at least in part because it didn’t want to unearth any evidence that Blacks and Whites shared common ancestors. This week on Sea Change Radio, we take a look at some of the stunning archaeological discoveries that have emerged from South Africa over the past fifteen years. Our guest today is Dr. Keneiloe Molopyane, an archeologist who leads research in an area known as the Cradle of Humankind. In our wide-ranging discussion with Dr. Molopyane, we get a quick anthropology lesson, learn more about discoveries from the region, and explore the historical context of these prehistorical finds.
Narrator | 00:02 – This is Sea Change Radio, covering the shift to sustainability. I’m Alex Wise.
Keneiloe Molopyane (KM) | 00:17 – Human evolution is very, very complex and you kind of want to view it as a braided stream model. So you have your, your main river, and from your main river comes streams and tributaries. Some link into other streams, some sort of go extinct.
Narrator | 00:39 – Those of us who studied anthropology in the latter half of the 20th century most likely learned that the birthplace of humankind was East African countries such as Tanzania and Kenya. But for much of that same period, the apartheid regime in South Africa largely prohibited archaeological excavations, at least in part because it didn’t want to unearth any evidence that Blacks and Whites shared common ancestors. This week on Sea Change Radio, we take a look at some of the stunning archaeological discoveries that have emerged from South Africa over the past fifteen years. Our guest today is Dr. Keneiloe Molopyane, an archeologist who leads research in an area known as the Cradle of Humankind. In our wide-ranging discussion with Dr. Molopyane, we get a quick anthropology lesson, learn more about discoveries from the region, and explore the historical context of these prehistorical finds.
Alex Wise (AW) | 01:48 – I’m joined now on Sea Change Radio by Keneiloe Molopyane. She is an archeologist and she’s based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Keneiloe, welcome to Sea Change Radio.
Keneiloe Molopyane (KM) | 02:01 – Hi guys, how are you?
Alex Wise (AW) | 02:03 – So, I just recently visited your site and the area where the excavations have been taking place that have borne some amazing fruit in terms of what we know of early man. Why don’t you first explain the findings that have come out of this region from Molapa and the Rising Star cave system, both, um, Homo Naledi and Australopithecus Sediba. Those are fascinating new breakthrough findings from the last couple decades that most people aren’t really very aware of.
Keneiloe Molopyane (KM) | 02:41 – Yeah. Uh, sure. I mean, I could, uh, shed some light on, on my research area. Um, so as Alex said, I am an archeologist. Primarily I do hold a PhD degree in biological anthropology. Um, so essentially that means I study skeletons for a living. And then I decided to dive into paleo anthropology, which is ancient skeletons of ancient humans for a living. And one of the best places to do that is a very small region in the province of <inaudible>, which is in South Africa. That’s where, uh, Johannesburg is based and this region is known as the cradle of humankind. And now the cradle of humankind is about 45 minutes from both Pretoria and from Johannesburg, which are our two major cities in the halting region. And so in the cray of humankind, it’s just, it’s dotted with a whole bunch of cave systems. And of those hundreds of, of caves, there are about 13 to 15 that are known as official Hominin fossil bearing cave systems. So you have the famous Doane Cave where the fossil of Mrs. Place came from. If we have Rising Star, you have Ro-dry Dreamland, Cooper’s Cave – my favorite cave, not to be biased – it is my main research area, and that’s Gladwell Cave. In Gladys. Well, and then you have Molapa known for the discovery of Australopithecus Sediba. And so, you know, the cradle of humankind is just an incredible site or region to be in because it holds so much history that is literally lying beneath our feet.
Alex Wise (AW) | 04:36 – Before we break down the findings in greater detail, maybe you can give us a little bit of the backstory of how these regions were exposed. It is, it’s quite a remarkable story.
Keneiloe Molopyane (KM) | 04:50 – Yeah. it’s, it’s a fantastic story, which I would love to explore a little bit more in my spare time, my extra time, uh, if, when I’m not teaching at Witwatersrand University because I do teach human origins to archeology undergraduate students. But the Cradle of Humankind, as I mentioned before, is about a 45-minute drive from Johannesburg. And Johannesburg is one of those early cities in the interior of South Africa, big booming mining town. Really, it was almost like a tenter camp in the beginning with the first discoveries of gold. And then from there, it really boomed into a town and then into a city.
AW | 05:37 – I don’t think most American audiences realize that Johannesburg is a much newer city than Cape Town. It has a very interesting story there with the Dutch and the British fighting and pushing the Dutch into higher grounds. Is that right?
KM | 05:52 – Into the Inlands. Yes. So Johannesburg is much younger than, than Cape Town is, um, still very interesting. I used to live in Cape Town, but I will always be a Jo-berg girl. I’m from Johannesburg <laugh>, so it has a special place in my heart. But in order to facilitate the growth of this booming or near to be booming city, to gold mining or the gold industry needed a bit of a boost. And so I’m not, I’m not a miner and I’m not an engineer or anything like that. Um, but one of the key ingredients, I would put it that way in gold extraction or even making concrete, was limestone. And one of the best places to get easily accessible and quite rich limestone, was in the cradle of humankind in that region. And so that sort of attracted a lot of prospectors who came into the region and started excavating in these cave systems where there was lots of limestone for extraction. And so we had a lot of mining activity in the cradle region. Um, and as you know, these historic miners are chipping away at blocks or blasting, especially blasting using dynamite blasting away at these walls and exposing more and more limestone for them to excavate. Um, they unintentionally, um, sort of exposing ancient fossils, uh, of both hominids, which are ancient human ancestors, and for remains our animals are extinct animals. Um, and that sort of is really where the superficially, where the beginnings of paleo-anthropology really kicked off was, you know, these individuals going into these spaces where people don’t normally go. And then sort of uncovering all these skeletons, um, for future generations to find and to look at.
AW | 08:13 – So in the early 1900s, these miners unwittingly exposed by dynamiting in this area where you study and you and your team exposed these fossils – Lee Berger and his son, but it wasn’t a linear discovery because of the unfortunate and rather horrible practice of apartheid. Why don’t you expand on how apartheid affected archeology in South Africa in the 20th century?
KM | 08:42 -So they seemed to be this national movement into preserving pure races in, in the country. I mean, now we understand that all of humanity came from Africa. And so you have two points of origins in Africa, one in being in East Africa, known as the cradle of mankind, and then Southern Africa, um, known as the cradle of humankind. And so East Africa is sort of synonymous with the famous fossil known as Lucy Australopithecus Afarensis, but also in 1924, very interestingly, another ancient human ancestor was found in South Africa at a town called Tum, which is in the Northwestern province in South Africa. And what happened at Tahu was that in 1924, so last year we discovered 100 years of its discovery was a small skull of a juvenile Australopithecua Africanus, which dated to about, let me say 2.5 to 3 million years ago. I might get my dates wrong here a little bit, but you know, the discovery of this skull, of which this year in 2025, we celebrate the naming of the species, um, sort of put Southern Africa on the map, particularly South Africa as contributing to the story of what it means to be human and finding our origins in Africa. And then from the to child, 1941 came Mrs. Place from another famous site in South Africa, in the cradle of humankind region, Sterkfontein. And so you started generating this whole idea of humanity and everyone coming from southern Africa, which was a bit of a problem, when it came to colonial rule and, you know, the apartheid era and just, you know, people wanting to be very special when in fact they were just like the rest of us. And so that sort of guided people, guided researchers into certain ways of thinking and certain avenues that they were allowed to do, and they couldn’t publish about anything else. You know, it was always the person in rule that had to be at the top, and you couldn’t have someone lesser on the same level as you. And so that sort of hindered a lot of progress in a way. A lot of people were oppressed in that period, and a lot of people were, weren’t recognized, um, for their contributions to, to the study of human origins. Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s just a very dark history in South Africa, all in all. Um, and I’m very glad that we came out of it because if we didn’t, I wouldn’t be here today.
(Music Break) | 11:26
AW | 12:46 -This is Alex Wise on Sea Change Radio, and I’m speaking to Dr. Keneiloe Molopyane from the cradle of humankind outside of Johannesburg, South Africa. So take us up to Australopithecus Sediba and, and explain what this means for your field. How is this finding a shot across the bow for what we thought we understood about early Hominins beforehand?
KM | 13:11 – Well, any hominin that has been found either in East Africa or Southern Africa is equally important, right? There’s, there’s no hominin that’s more important than, than the other. They’re all shedding lights on what it means to be human. Um, but in 2010, I think that the world was introduced to a new Hominin known as Australopithecus Sediba, founded the site of Molapa. And so it, it’s very interesting as to how the names of these fossils came about. It’s a beautiful story and I wish that it would continue moving forward. But a little boy, a 9-year-old or 11-year-old Matthew, Matthew Berger, uh, made an incredible discovery whilst, um, going exploring with his dad, professor Lee Berger and Job Kibby, who was Prof Berger’s postdoctoral assistant. And so this little 11-year-old boy found another young hominin, almost possibly the same biological age as he was at the time. And this hominin – Australopithecus Sediba, meaning fountain of spring and this Susu language. And so this would be one of the youngest juvenile hominins that we would find in, in southern Africa. And so Sediba sort of displayed characteristics that were both primitive and modern in a sense. It, it showed a lot of similarities to, to modern humans in, in the way of its anatomy. But I could expand a little bit on the, um, the scientific relevance of Sediba, but I don’t think that’s the important part of the story. The most important part of the story is this huge discovery was made by a child, and the name of the site was given an African name, which is not very common in on the African continent. I’ll, I’ll say that. Molapa is the Sui word for Home. So it’s fountain or spring. And the nickname for Australopithecus Sediba that was first found is named carbo. And carbo means the answer in the Tsu language. And Carbo received his name after a competition that was given to South African school children. And it was a school child, a South African school child that named a, a fossil in this country, um, giving it an African name. So just that, that movement or that opportunity sort of gave Africans their power or ownership over their fossils. So it wasn’t a thing of, you know, previously you have these parachute scientists, so western scientists coming in, doing the work in Africa, and then just claiming everything. I think Professor Berger sort of ushered this, this movement of Africans taking the claim in a way in that, okay, we are going to name our fossils. We are going to name our sites, we’re going to work on these sites, and we are actually going to be recognized for the roles that we play.
AW | 16:50 – Maybe you can give our listeners an idea of the various timelines of not only Homo Naledi and Australopithecus Sediba, but also some of the concomitant findings from the 20th century. A a little earlier we had mentioned Louis Leaky, but there’s his son Richard, leaky and other subsequent archeologists from African excavations. If you can give us an idea of the timeline of these findings and how they fit into helping scientists understanding the evolution of these early hominins, that’d be great.
KM | 17:21 – From the beginnings of paleo-anthropology, most researchers or paleoanthropologists have been trying to find the, the missing link. You know, that that one individual, that one species that sort of links modern humans to apes, which we diss, descend from, or we are related to in some way. And so there’s this in the search for, for the missing link. And so when you try to do this whole exercise of trying to create a, a timeline by looking at all these hominins, it becomes complicated and messy. So in the early years, um, we thought as human evolution being a linear progression model, and you know, it’s depicted in this very famous, uh, March of Humanity sort of cartoon, you know, where you, at one end you have an ape, and on the other end you have a modern man walking, and then everything else is in between.
But you know, as we have these discoveries that are coming with all these crazy days, I mean, the earliest we have is like 3 million years old, and then you have o Australopithecus Sediba at 1.8 million, then you have Australopithecus Sediba Africanness coming in at 2 million I would roughly put it at, and then you have Hona Lady, which is quite recent, at about 200,000 years old. And of course you, you know, you have your other hominins, like Australopithecus Sediba a, which is your famous Lucy coming in, in the middle of that, you have Autohaus Shr and I, I know I’m throwing complicated names in there.
AW | 19:17 – So that 3-million-year-old hominin that you just mentioned, which finding would that be?
KM | 19:22 – The earliest hominin, and I think it’s Shrops or it’s Australopithecus Reis that the sort of debt to, to that time. And we haven’t found anything older than that. So 3 million is sort of our limit there in terms of hominins – humanlike apes. But you know, if you were to take all the hominins that have been discovered in not just Africa, but you know, everywhere else, you sort of stop seeing human evolution as a linear progression model. And then you try to sort of make it more complex. So you have this family tree model coming to mind, and so you sort of realize that human evolution is very, very complex and you kind of want to view it as a braided stream model. So you have your, your main river, and from your main river comes streams and tributaries, some link into other streams, some sort of go extinct, you know, they come to a dead end until we can find out more information about these individuals. And genetics come into play. The whole idea of trying to trace us back to a single species or, you know, to find out a roadmap of human ancestry, I think is very complicated. It’s quite a difficult question to answer. And for, for me personally, it’s, it’s not something I’m, I’m looking to answer. I mean, my mission is very, very different in that I’m a young South African woman in a very male, white, male dominated science. So again, my primary focus is to inspire a generation of young African scientists, you know, people of color doing the work and you know, being, giving recognition for that.
(Music Break)
AW | 22:10- This is Alex Wise on Sea Change Radio, and I’m speaking to Dr. Keneiloe Molopyane. So let’s dive into some of the discoveries surrounding Homo Naledi such as tools and fire use and, and artwork. A non-scientist who comes across a little fire pit in these caves might not think much about it, but it means quite a bit to the scientific community, doesn’t it?
KM | 22:33 – Yeah. The, the latest data that we have from the Rising Star cave system is still understudied. We’re still very much investigating all the hypotheses that were put forward, um, both in the documentary and those outside of the documentary, um, such as deliberate burial of the dead, uh, the making of markings, cognitive markings on the walls, and possible fires. So this is very much still work that is undergoing, um, but if it does come to light that maybe we did find the beginnings of such complex behaviors and, um, and thinkings in that way, it, it sort of sheds a light in that, you know, modern humans aren’t as unique as we have built ourselves to being, um, that we, you know, we didn’t invent everything. We sort of learned it along the way. And I think that’s sort of a, a shock to, to most people in, in terms of our beliefs and what we’ve been taught. So there’s this whole exercise size of trying to, to push boundaries with the evidence that is there. So we’re still quite a ways away from it. What would happen if, you know, if we are correct? I don’t know. I just, I mean, I, I think it’d be a, a great thing for our science in that, you know, we are pushing boundaries and we are going to very uncomfortable, scary spaces, not just literally, but also, you know, academically and cognitively. And, you know, I’m very much looking forward to that time.
AW | 24:32 – So you talk about beliefs, there’s also some discoveries that shed light on the belief of these early Homo Naledi hominins. It, it looks like they very easily could have had religious beliefs or at least believed in an afterlife. And these common links of art, these hashtag art designs that have been found in caves in Europe from Neanderthals along with early hominins in Africa, is pretty remarkable, isn’t it?
KM | 24:58 – Yeah. So one of the controversial hypotheses at the Rising Star cave system was that Homo Naledi was intentionally burying their, their dead. They had that cognition that, you know, this individual’s dead, and so we need to, to bury them, uh, in a repeated pattern, right? So it’s not a one-time thing. They’ll do it a hundred couple of times. Um, and so that’s behavior, it’s complex behavior, which is normally not associated with early hominins or with Hominins in general. And then during our expeditions in the dragon’s back in 2022 or 2023, during that expedition, we found evidence of fire in, in the cave system, in the, the back regions, but not too far away, evidence of fire, isolated fire. And so one of the critiques was that, if Homo Naledi is burying its dead, they need to see in the cave, right? Because it’s a very dark and enclosed space, so you need some sort of light. So that would infer that these Hermon had access to controlled fire. Um, and so it was this question of where is the fire? And so we might have potentially found that fire, we’re still, you know, studying this, studying the findings that we did find to, to see if they due date to the Hona lady era. If this is true, then we have almost the, the earliest evidence of, of fire making in, in Hominin. Um, and then along with the making of the fire, when Professor Berger went down to dinner lady, he noticed something that many of us did not notice, which was markings on, on the wall. Um, and they seemed to be very purposeful as well, um, purposeful in their making and also purposeful in their, um, location of where these marks and hashtag um, signatures were ripping left. So again, we, you know, we sent out researchers into these spaces to look into study them. I mean, if they are intentional, then again, that indicates complex behavior, <laugh>, which is, again, very remarkable for a species that is thought to be part of the primitive part of our human lineage.
AW | 27:36 – Well, I know this work isn’t as nearly as glamorous as it’s portrayed on our screens at home. It takes a ton of diligence, patience and perseverance. But it, it definitely seems like it’s paid off because the scientific world and humankind in general has benefited greatly from the work of you and your colleagues. Dr. Kwe Mulani, thanks so much for being my guest on Sea Change Radio.
KM | 28:00 – Oh, thank you so much for inviting me, Alex. It’s been great.
Narrator | 28:17 – You’ve been listening to Sea Change Radio. Our intro music is by Sanford Lewis. And our outro music is by Alex Wise, additional music by Peter Gabriel, U2 and Ice. To read a transcript of this show, go to Sea Change Radio dot com stream, or download the show or subscribe to our podcast on our site, or visit our archives to hear from Doris Kearns Goodwin, Gavin Newsom, Stewart Brand, and many others – and tune in to Sea Change Radio next week as we continue making connections for sustainability. For Sea Change Radio, I’m Alex Wise.