January 9, 2006
By Sipho Maduna
SCIENTISTS from around the globe have gathered in Joburg this week to ponder one of the greatest questions of all time: how did humans originate?
The symposium is regarded as one of the most significant meetings of scholars of human origins in more than two decades.
The African Genesis International Symposium on Human Evolution is taking place at Wits University from 8 to 14 January - with a free public lecture by Mark Stoneking, professor of biological anthropology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, on Tuesday, 10 January.
"The objective of the conference is to bring together top scientists from around the world to discuss current topics in palaeoanthropology," explained Jason Hemingway, a palaeoanthropology student at the university.
The Cradle of Humankind has records of humankind's ancestors going back three million years
More than 60 eminent scientists in the fields of palaeoanthropology and related disciplines are attending the symposium, which coincides with the 80th anniversary of the announcement of the discovery of the world famous Taung Child, and with Professor Phillip Tobias's 80th birthday.
Tobias, professor emeritus of anatomy and human biology at Wits University, is one of South Africa's most distinguished and best-loved scientists.
Wits has close links with the Cradle of Humankind, a World Heritage site. The 47 000ha cradle, about 50 kilometres north-west of Johannesburg, has a fossil record of some 3 million years of human activity, including man's earliest-known mastery of fire.
Of all the world's human ancestor fossils, 40 percent have been found at the cradle.
As part of the gathering, a bust of Tobias will be unveiled, according to Dr Sally Reynolds, the symposium co-ordinator from the Wits School of Anatomical Science.
"This is significant because Tobias and his dedicated team of researchers from the School of Anatomical Science have discovered the fossil specimens that have made the Cradle of Humankind such an internationally important site," she says.
Topics to be discussed by the scientists include:
- the origins and adaptations of the earliest hominids;
- the origins, adaptations and radiations of the australopithecines;
- hominid evolutionary ecology in the plio-Pleistocene epoch;
- the origins, emergence and taxonomic diversity in early Homo;
- the origins and evolution of Homo sapiens in Africa; and
- hominid behavioural diversity in the plio-Pleistocene epoch.
Among the scientists attending the symposium are the world-renowned scholars Dr Bob Brain, Professor Francis Thackeray, Professor Michel Brunet and Professor Barnard Wood.
"It is a real honour to have so many international scientists in palaeoanthropology coming home to the Cradle of Humankind to discuss the origins of human life," says Dr Andrew Gallagher of the Wits School of Anatomical Science.
He says the African Genesis Symposium promises to be the most memorable gathering of human origins scholars in more than two decades.
The conference runs from 9am to 5pm everyday and registration is R100 a day.
For more information about the conference and the programme, contact Dr Sally Reynolds on 011 717 2079 or Dr Andrew Gallagher on 011 717 2109 or visit the Wits University website.
Permission to use web site material
Publishers may use material from this site free of charge, as long as:
- Credit is given to either the "City of Johannesburg website
(www.joburg.org.za)" or to "Johannesburg News Agency
(www.joburg.org.za)";
- If the article is used online, a link is provided to the original
article on this website;
- The name of the article's author is acknowledged;
-
The webmaster is informed of how and where the material is used (fill
in this brief online form).
Johannesburg News Agency is operated by BIG Media at 011-484-1400 |
