A new exhibition exploring the ‘Origins of Early Southern Sapiens Behaviour’ opened its doors at the Cape of Good Hope Buffelsfontein Visitor Centre (BVC) in Table Mountain National Park (TMNP) this Tuesday, 6 June.
The exhibition serves as a platform to showcase the discovery of early modern human origins and innovations in southern Africa using multi-media displays.
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Presented by South African National Parks (SANParks), together with the University of Bergen’s SFF Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour (SapienCE) in Norway and the Evolutionary Studies Institute of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, the exhibition will run for the next three years.
Speaking at the exhibition’s launch, SANParks CEO Hapiloe Sello expressed her admiration and gratitude to the team of archaeologists for creating, developing and constructing the remarkable project and exhibition.
‘We are proud to offer visitors and particularly young people an opportunity to add to their bucket list, a cultural exploration exhibition that educates us about our common past and allows us to see first-hand where and how all humans’ ancestors lived,’ said Sello.
‘It demonstrates our desire to communicate in an innovative, engaging way that reduces barriers and makes science exploration universally accessible and exciting.’
The ‘Origins of Early Southern Sapiens Behaviour’ exhibition, curated by award-winning documentary filmmaker Craig Foster and archaeologist Petro Keene, showcases the culmination of 30 years of archaeological research in the southern Cape undertaken by Professor Christopher Henshilwood, Dr Karen van Niekerk, Professor Sarah Wurz and their research teams at the respective archaeological sites.
From the development of complex tools and symbolic communication, the exhibition comprises 19 unique display panels, including six videos by Craig Foster and Damon Foster, as well as bespoke Sea Change Project content, allowing visitors a unique multi-sensory experience.
With the goal of shedding light on the complex evolution of early Homo sapiens and their cultural and cognitive abilities, the exhibition both affirms that we do, indeed, all come from Africa and showcases the ways in which our ancient ancestors were able to adapt and thrive in a changing environment.
The daily life of early Homo sapiens has been recreated on film, and the artefacts and objects created and used by these early inhabitants of our coastline have been meticulously replicated for display to capture the way of life of humans between 120 000 and 50 000 years ago.
The videos highlight the remarkable scientific work of the SapienCE and Wits archaeologists, and aims to connect people to the environment, and through this, generate a better understanding of themselves.
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