GUESS THE DESTINATION : STHEMBISO DLAMINI - Gauteng Tourism Authority CEO

 

 

CLUE: Declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1999, the site is home to the largest concentration of human ancestral remains anywhere in the world. Where are we today? 

 

ANSWER: THE CRADLE OF HUMAN KIND 

The Cradle of Humankind is one of 8 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in South Africa. 

It lies about 50km north-west of Johannesburg, One of the first major discoveries here was that of 'Mrs Ples', a pre-human skull dating back more than 2-million years (Australopithecus Africanus) that was unearthed by Professor Robert Broom and his assistant, John Robinson, in 1947. 

 

REVIVING TOURISM POST THE COVID-19 LOCKDOWN ERA 

In tourism news this week MEC of Economic Development Tasneem Motara  celebrated a massive injection of Gauteng tourism revenue of R52 Billion in 2022, as she toured local attractions in the West Rand

 

GUEST: STHEMBISO DLAMINI - Gauteng Tourism Authority CEO

 

1.      Does this mean tourism is back in business after the covid-19 lockdown?

2.      How has small business recovered and now you are faced with loadshedding? 

3.      Your experience of the cradle of humankind heritage site and as one of the main destination attractions in Gauteng? 

4.      Your top 3 go to places in Gauteng?

 

Here the landscape is dotted with subterranean limestone caves that have turned up a rich fossil record for human evolutionary studies. These findings have led to the 'Out of Africa' theory, theorising that most human ancestors originated from one general spot… Africa. 

It’s here where you get to see history in the flesh, or should we say bone. Tens of thousands of visitors from across the world come here to see first-hand the fossil record that lies in the network of limestone caves beneath the surface. 

Explore the Sterkfontein Caves, Swartkrans and Kromdraai, among other fossil sites, and discover the story of what the world was like when our human ancestors were evolving some 2 to 3 million years ago. 

At the Sterkfontein Caves alone, the remains of more than 500 Hominids (the Hominid family includes modern-day humans and their direct ancestors) have been uncovered. This not only led to the area being declared a World Heritage Site in 1999 but has also helped to prove the ‘Out of Africa’ theory, which is that humans and their ancestors evolved in Africa and then spread out to the rest of the world over time. 

Fossils were first unearthed here in the 1890s when the caves were blasted open for lime needed for the extraction of gold discovered on the Witwatersrand in 1886. 

But it was only from the 1930s that serious scientific work started to take place.