Sterkfontein Caves
An underground tour.
Olga Ernst — CC BY-SA 4.0 · ProfbergerLee R. Berger — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Olga Ernst — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Andy Herries — CC BY-SA 4.0
A wide area of hills and limestone caves north-west of Johannesburg holding the world's largest known concentration of human ancestral remains, listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1999 as the Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa. In the Sterkfontein Caves the skull known as Mrs Ples, about 2.3 million years old, was found in 1947, followed later by the near-complete skeleton nicknamed Little Foot. A guided tour goes down into the caves with their narrow passages and underground lake. A few kilometres away is Maropeng, the official visitor centre, in a building shaped like a grassy burial mound, which takes visitors on a boat ride through a tunnel telling the story of the Earth's formation, then into an interactive exhibition on human evolution, good for families. Each site is ticketed separately, about R150 per adult each, since Wits University took over running the caves alone, per visitor guides. The area is a day trip from Johannesburg or Pretoria.
An underground tour.
2.3 million years.
A boat ride.
About 50 km north-west of Johannesburg
No, each site is ticketed separately, about R150 per adult each, per visitor guides.