Gcwihaba, Koanaka caves human origins research commences
Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Sunday December 24, 2023 08:55
Addressing the media at Gcwihaba recently, geo-archaeologist Professor, Laurent Bruxelles from France explained that he came with his team who are currently on the ground to explore the two sites. He added that the research did not only belong to the French researchers but to Botswana as well.
He said when doing the research, they also included the community too. He added that they worked with different specialists such as paleontologists, archeologists, pathologists, biologists and 3D specialists.
He added that they were in search of hominids or humans’ origins in Botswana because they believed that there might be in Gcwihaba and Koanaka caves. He explained that the idea of this research project is to share the knowledge and science for society also adding that when they do science, they never forget the society. He also said they were searching for origins of humans (hominids) in Africa. He further explained that in South Africa, one of the specialists found a fossil named Little Foot, who is believed to have fell in the caves millions of years ago.
Little Foot is said to have lived in the Cradle of Humankind sometime between 3.7 million years ago and was an early form of Australopithecus who were smaller than most modern humans. Bruxelles said he was engaged to do datings for that fossil. He added that at the time two places in Africa two places in East where Australopithecus and Southern Africa were supposed to be Cradle of Humankind. He added that when doing dating of Little Food it was given 2.6 million years but he gave him a million more years. “We are looking where the hominids are. In East Africa they are in Rift Valley, these cracked earth where there are a lot of sediments with broken ashes and hominids. It is easy to date the found hominids because of volcano ashes. Here in Southern Africa there are also some hominids and they are in the caves. In the caves it is difficult to date them hence why there are some bad datings.
Now, we know that we had some hominids in the same time as the east Africa. We have even the same kind of species so that means they were moving all along. It opens very nice perspective to look for other hominids,” he pointed out. He explained that they were working on the mentioned caves because they believed they were old enough to yield some hominids. He added that they took the geography of Africa and looked for rocks where caves could be formed. He added that they looked for rocks that had dolomite, limestone and not any other rocks. He added that here close to the Namibian border, there were some caves such as Koanaka and Gcwihaba to explore them and understand how they were formed. He added that they have already found some bones at the entrance of the caves which is a positive finding.
For his part, senior Archaeologist and Heritage manager at the Botswana National Museum, Phillip Segadika said people made a mistake by saying East Africa was the main area for human origins. He said research has proven that human origins dated 2.7 million years were found in South Africa, making them as old as those found in East Africa. He explained that the mistake comes from the way the studies were done. He added that it was through the project that they managed to give four young Batswana scholarships where one was pursing her PhD and three pursing masters in geology, biology as well as acheology. The Koanaka caves where studies are done are ruined as the roof had fallen off but their floor still posses’ rich history about them and most rocks have bones that tell stories of animals that lived in them. He added that they were writing a book about the caves and also shooting a 3D pictures of the caves that would be shared online.