FACE-TO-FACE (SO TO SPEAK) WITH OUR ANCIENT ANCESTOR...

It was an odd moment. There I was staring at my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great (you get the idea), grand-father. He was exhibited in a thick plactic display case at a place called Maropeng (see posted photographs).

Located in what is called The Cradle of Humankind, Maropeng is a new facility offering a fun yet educational attraction near Johannesburg that tells the story of humankind's origins and its continuing journey into the future. It teaches the formation of the earth and all its living creatures through exploration of interactive exhibits, interpretation panels, and audio visual displays--all there to discover who we are and where we came from.

We did that. At the end of the expansive complex is a room that is utilized to display appropriate fossils to explain the story of humankind. Upon walking into the room, we were immediately struck by the fact that all of the display cases contained fossilized skulls. I was drawn to the case because of the size of the skull. It was small.

He's known as the Taung child, named so because of where he was found. With that in mind, one must realize that South Africa is famous for being home to approximately 40 percent of the world's hominid fossils (which means they belong to our human family tree). The fossils are as old as 3.5 million years and come from a time when our earliest human ancestors were roaming the African savannah.


It has been theorized by scientists that the Taung child was killed and eaten by an eagle (I wondered how they could arrive at such a conclusion regarding the demise of my African relative!). The epoch-making discovery was made by Professor Raymond Dart, a young Wits University academic who recognized he had discovered a skull that could be classified as a missing link between modern humans and apes.

For six weeks, using a sharpened knitting needle and a hammer and chisel he had purchased from a local hardware store, the professor chipped away at the limestone that had encased my relative for a little over 2 million years. There, in front of his very eyes, was an almost perfect little face with a full set of milk teeth with its first molars just developing.

Dart was convinced he had found a creature which was daring to vie with man. It's features were startlingly similar to later humans. He knew that in his hands was the first unequivocal, "living" proof that humans had indeed evolved from apes, and also that Charles Darwin's much derided theory that man's early progenitors came from Africa was right, after all.

So, here I was, examining my ancient African relative. Svetlana explained the above information to Ivan. I was proud and happy to watch him learn about his earliest ancestor. Perhaps in future years the lessons he learned that day will have more of an impact on his life. Who knows? Maybe he will disregard what he witnessed, I don't know. But, I am reasonably sure he will recognize an unmistakable truth: Africa is home to humankind. We can all trace our ancestors back to this land.

For this, I (we) thank Professor Raymond Dart for his thrilling discovery. And even more so, we thank him for his scientific work in South Africa. The Taung child was discovered in 1924, but the rest of the scientific world did not catch up with his vision and knowledge until the early 1950's. By 1984 the U.S. journal Science felt confident enough to acknowledge his find as one of 20 scientific discoveries that had shaped the life of human beings in the 20th century.

Our little Ivan John Josef Davidek was born on June 27, 1999. That makes him part of the last century. Dr. Dart's life's work encompasses our little guy who was born in the last century. His life will be lived mostly in the 21st century--a time of extreme change and momentous challenges for humankind.

I hope he will remember his "roots." We will continue to encourage him to accept the fact that the path to humanity today is related to earlier steps taken by our African ancestors. It is theorized the Taung child was terrorized by a stray bird of prey. So-called modern humans are now being terrorized by fellow human beings, climate changes, pollution, genocide, warfare, and worse. Add to that mix, denial and ambivilence, and the future looks rather bleak.

Good luck son. And good luck to my other two children, Erik and Erin. And good luck to their children too. If we must depend on luck...well, good luck world! We're gonna need it...