Spellbound by magic of Sterkfontein Caves

Johannesburg - Blame it on the miners. In fact, you can thank one concerned geologist’s bid to stop the miners – that’s how Gauteng still has its Sterkfontein Caves and you can search for the missing link.

It was 1896 and Guglielmo Martinaglia and his miners were blasting into the caves to extract lime, critical for the extraction of gold and for making concrete. As they dumped the overmatter on the surface, somebody noticed fossils in the rock dump and alerted David Draper, a respected geologist of the time who got them to stop mining the caves to preserve the incredible stalactites and stalagmites underground. They did.

In 1936, Wits University students, under the leadership of Dr Robert Broom, started seriously researching the area in defence of Professor Raymond Dart, who had become the subject of much scorn and derision for daring to suggest the child-like skull he had found in Taung in 1924 could be that of a hominid infant, the missing link between Homo sapiens and the apes – a species which Dart had dubbed Australopithecus africanus (southern ape of Africa). They found their first specimen in 1936.

After World War II, Broom would find an almost complete, perfectly preserved 2.1-million-year-old skull of a hominid he thought was female, but not of the same species as the Taung Child. He called it Plesianthropus transvaalensis (near man from the Transvaal), and The Star promptly dubbed it “Mrs Ples”, a name that has stuck since, even though it was later agreed Mrs Ples and the Taung Child were the same species. That’s now common cause; in fact, later research suggests that Mrs Ples might actually be the skull of a young male Australopithecus africanus.

The caves at Sterkfontein continue to reveal incredible and fascinating insights into the evolution of the human species.

They’re the longest running dig in history – anywhere in the world – and they’re only 50km outside Joburg, just past Muldersdrift in a 47 000ha valley aptly dubbed the Cradle of Humankind and a world heritage site since 2000.

Privately owned and run by Wits University, the Sterkfontein Caves should be on any thinking South African’s bucket list.

The tour itself takes about an hour. There’s plenty of scaremongering beforehand about having to be neither unfit nor claustrophobic, but the truth is unless you’re in a wheelchair or have a broken leg, you should be able to complete it. If you do, it’ll be as big a mind opener.

Aside from the reception centre, there’s nothing much to tell that you’re approaching one of the most significant archaeological digs in the world. The tours are guided for safety and security reasons, partly for visitors’ security; there’s an unplumbed subterranean lake that took the life of Pieter Verhulsel in 1984 – it took his rescuers three weeks to find his body in the labyrinth of underwater chambers and air-filled caverns – and partly for the security of the remains themselves. Sterkfontein yielded the almost complete fossilised skeleton of what could be an even earlier species than Australopithecus africanus, “Little Foot”, aged between 4-million and 3.3-million years old, found by the legendary Phillip Tobias and Professor Ronald Clarke in 1997. Excavations continue to this day.

The descent into the cave is like walking down a stone staircase into Santa’s Grotto. Our guide, Abigail Mothusiemang, is as well-informed as she is witty. “Mrs Ples,” she tells us, referring to the ongoing debate into whether the hominid is male or female, “we say, ‘she’s the man’, it’s not for us as guides to reflect on which theory is correct, only to tell you of both views.”

Stopping to point out nesting fruit bats or a solitary underground rabbit, she shows where the miners came in more than a century ago to plunder the lime, blithely blasting out stalactites, and points out the striations on the cave walls where the underground lake receded to reveal the bedrock of the incredible natural cathedral with its vaulting ceiling stretching up about 50m in places.

Explaining the geology, she takes the group behind a little overhang.

There, little crystals sparkle like pink diamonds.

“Feel them,” she implores, “they’re sharp, pretty is painful!”

From there we gaze out onto the impenetrable depths of the lake that would claim Verhuls’s life.

For fans of Wilbur Smith, the experience feels like something straight out of The Sunbird, but it could be as true for fans of Indiana Jones or even Lara Croft.

The sentiment is the same: the silent jubilation of being witness to a hidden treasure of unimaginable proportions.

The way out will test your agility. At times the passage narrows, at others it shrinks until you have to go on your haunches or, for the rotund like me, on your backside.

There are 200 steps to the top, Abigail tells us.

The prospect is terrifying, but the reality is a little different, interspersed with stops, titillating soundbytes of information until suddenly we emerge into the sunlight past bronze busts of Tobias and Broom.

Abigail’s last injunction is to explain the shiny appearance of Broom’s nose and his hand, which cradles Mrs Ples.

“Everyone touches the nose for good luck and the hand for wisdom. Don’t do both, that’s just greedy – and bad luck.”

And with a wave of her hand, she disappears back into the depths to initiate a new group of visitors into the wonders of Sterkfontein.

IF YOU GO

Opening hours

Maropeng, 9-5pm daily. The last boat ride departs at 4pm.

Sterkfontein Caves, 9am-5pm daily.

Maropeng

Cost: Adults R160, children (4-14) R90 and children under 4 free.

Pensioners: R85.

Students: R100.

Sterkfontein Caves