The 2024 Hominid Fossil Dig at the Cradle Of Humankind was the perfect platform for our Recreational Palaeontologist’s to enjoy hands-on participation at South Africa’s flagship sites of Kromdraai and Sterkfontein. Led by Prof José Braga, Dr Bernhard Zipfel and Prof Matt Caruana, their incredible in-depth knowledge of these sites and cave systems proved invaluable.
The Dig proved to be an info-packed, professionally delivered crash-course! A bird’s eye view of the intricacies of fossil finding and processing.
Our guests experienced the thrill of real-time fossil excavations together with the excitement of finding micro-fauna fossils through to bovine bones, elephant tusk, sabre tooth fossils and also got to watch excavations that are on going on a site that hosts both australipithicus as well as paranthropis fossils (dated 2.3 – 1.9 million years back). As for lab work, the group participated in finer excavations and air-scribing. This is a novice opportunity open to anyone wishing to experience the thrill of fossil finding.