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UN`s Annan sees humanity`s roots at Earth summit
Sterkfontein Caves (South Africa) Sept 01: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, on a mission to help save humanity from itself at the Earth Summit, explored mankind`s pre-historic roots at a cave site regarded as a cradle of the human race.
Sterkfontein Caves (South Africa) Sept 01: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, on a mission to help save humanity from itself at the Earth Summit, explored mankind's pre-historic roots at a cave site regarded as a cradle of the human race.
Annan is in South Africa for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which entered its seventh day on Sunday with delegates still negotiating the text of an ambitious action plan to slash poverty and protect the environment.
"The lives our distant ancestors led here millions of years ago hold a clear lesson for us today: while their footprints on nature were small, ours have become dangerously large," said a text by Annan prepared for a new plaque honoring the site.
"The World Summit on Sustainable Development of 2002 must set humankind on a new path that will ensure the security and survival of the planet for succeeding generations," he said.
The Sterkfontein Caves, a United Nations World Heritage Site just north of Johannesburg, have been a scientific gold mine, yielding hundreds of ape-man fossil specimens, the most ancient being 3.5 million years old.
Annan and South African President Thabo Mbeki were taken on a tour of the caves to view the excavation site of a hominid skeleton dating back 3.3 million years embedded in rock, the most complete example from that period.
"It's extraordinary, isn't it absolutely fantastic," said Mbeki.
Famed South African paleontologist Phillip Tobias welcomed the two leaders and their wives to the site, along with renowned primatologist Jane Goodall and South Africa's deputy president Jacob Zuma. Tobias said the caves were the "world's richest site for early fossil hominids."
Sterkfontein's fossils and older ones in east Africa, which date back close to six million years, are shedding light on our distant origins and providing clues to why and when we diverged from apes on the evolutionary ladder.
Experts are at odds over a seven-million-year-old skull unearthed in Chad, with some critics saying it belonged to a gorilla, not an early ancestor of modern humans.
At a lunch afterwards, Mbeki said: "We are all Africans...We have been saying welcome home (to the summit delegates)...it is the return to the home of our common ancestor." Bureau Report
Annan is in South Africa for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which entered its seventh day on Sunday with delegates still negotiating the text of an ambitious action plan to slash poverty and protect the environment.
"The lives our distant ancestors led here millions of years ago hold a clear lesson for us today: while their footprints on nature were small, ours have become dangerously large," said a text by Annan prepared for a new plaque honoring the site.
"The World Summit on Sustainable Development of 2002 must set humankind on a new path that will ensure the security and survival of the planet for succeeding generations," he said.
The Sterkfontein Caves, a United Nations World Heritage Site just north of Johannesburg, have been a scientific gold mine, yielding hundreds of ape-man fossil specimens, the most ancient being 3.5 million years old.
Annan and South African President Thabo Mbeki were taken on a tour of the caves to view the excavation site of a hominid skeleton dating back 3.3 million years embedded in rock, the most complete example from that period.
"It's extraordinary, isn't it absolutely fantastic," said Mbeki.
Famed South African paleontologist Phillip Tobias welcomed the two leaders and their wives to the site, along with renowned primatologist Jane Goodall and South Africa's deputy president Jacob Zuma. Tobias said the caves were the "world's richest site for early fossil hominids."
Sterkfontein's fossils and older ones in east Africa, which date back close to six million years, are shedding light on our distant origins and providing clues to why and when we diverged from apes on the evolutionary ladder.
Experts are at odds over a seven-million-year-old skull unearthed in Chad, with some critics saying it belonged to a gorilla, not an early ancestor of modern humans.
At a lunch afterwards, Mbeki said: "We are all Africans...We have been saying welcome home (to the summit delegates)...it is the return to the home of our common ancestor." Bureau Report