Lazarus Kgasi

• Junior curator at Ditsong: National Museum of Natural History

Palaeontological collections consist of unique, irreplaceable fossil evidence of diverse, once living organisms, and serve as a basis for various geo and bio-scientific studies, including climate and environmental science (Jansen and Türkay, 2010). As a historical connection between the earth and life sciences, palaeontology has gradually evolved f...

The hominin mandible SK 15 was discovered in April 1949 in Swartkrans Member 2, dated to~1.4 Ma. Albeit distorted on the right side, the left and right corpus of SK 15 are relatively low and thick, even compared to most Early to Middle Pleistocene Homo specimens. It preserves the left molar row and the right M 2 and M 3 that show a distalward incre...

A new parrot species of the genus Agapornis (Aves, Psittaculidae), namely Agapornis longipes nov. sp., is described from the Plio-Pleistocene of Kromdraai, Cooper’s Cave, and Swartkrans in the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa. The new species is represented by all major wing bones (humerus, ulna, and carpometacarpus) and by the tarsometatarsus, to...

Anurans are widely diversified in South Africa, with more than 150 recognised species across the country. However, most the known fossil records of anurans are concentrated in the southern part of South Africa, within the rich Pliocene site of Langebaanweg. Isolated anuran elements have been recovered in the Pliocene deposits of the Cradle of Human...

Important collections of Plio-Pleistocene cercopithecoid remains has have been discovered in South African karstic sites but few are older than the Late Pliocene. The fossiliferous Palaeokarst System of Bolt’s Farm in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site of UNESCO is known to have yielded a few remarkable remains of cercopithecoids, mainl...

The palaeokarst system of Bolt's Farm, Gauteng Province, South Africa, is endowed with numerous fossiliferous Plio-Pleistocene deposits. Among them, the mid-Pliocene locus of BPA (Brad Pit A) has yielded a hypsodont upper molar which exhibits a rodent-like wear pattern, but is not a rodent. In several aspects, it recalls macroscelidids and could fi...

The origins of Homo, as well as the diversity and biogeographic distribution of early Homo species, remain critical outstanding issues in paleoanthropology. Debates about the recognition of early Homo, first appearance dates, and taxonomic diversity within Homo are particularly important for determining the role that southern African taxa may have...

When Dr. Pickford is still living, his achievements as a palaeontologist should be honored. He always emphasized the value of sharing the knowledge he has gained over the years in this sector with the community during our discussions about science on numerous times. He has experience working with various ethnic groups throughout Africa and possesse...

Certain skeletal elements of mammals are rare in both modern and fossil collections. These include clavicle, baculum, hemal arches; basically, skeletal elements with little or no articulation with the rest of the skeleton. The reason for this is complex. In cases of the modern specimens the above-mentioned elements could be easily disposed together...

Bolt's Farm : du terrain au musée

Fossil preparation is one of the most important steps in fossil preservation. Although the simple act of sampling the fossil record can result in damage or biases in the production of a fossil sample from a set of deposits, minimising additional damage by undertaking carefully documented and justified preparation methods is an essential (if somewha...

Plio-Pleistocene sites in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site (recognized by UNESCO), including Taung and Makapansgat Limeworks, all in South Africa, have not only yielded a rich collection of macrofauna but also an abundance of microfauna. Even though the extant small lizards are highly diverse with 23 families and 350 species in southern...

Tetraconodont suids are in general rather poorly represented in Southern Africa, except at Langebaanweg, Cape Province and the Chiwondo Beds, Malawi. We here describe material from two localities in Namibia and one in South Africa in order to fill out the fossil record of this subfamily of artiodactyls in the subcontinent. The oldest specimens (Nya...

There are about 151 snake species in southern Africa, but little is known about their diversity and evolution during the past 23 million years. Snakes are poorly represented, even in the richly fossiliferous Plio-Pleistocene deposits in the Cradle of Humankind. This is especially true for the venomous snakes of the family Elapidae which comprises t...

Bolts Farm Cave System(Cradle of Humankind-South Africa) From 1936 to 2018

The forgotten fossils of the Cradle of Humankind: the example of the Plio-pleistocene lizards of Bolts Farm.

First fossil record of the spitting Elapidae in the Cradle of Humankind (South Africa)

The Primates from BPB (Bolts farm Cave System, South Africa)

We document the presence of the bald ibis genus Geronticus Wagler, 1832 (Aves: Threskiornithidae) from the mid-Pliocene (ca. 3–3.5 Ma) of South Africa based on an incomplete skull from the Bolt’s Farm Cave System (Cradle of Humankind, Gauteng, South Africa). The fossil cranium is distinct on morphometric and structural grounds from Geronticus apele...

The Cradle of Humankind in South Africa, recognized as World Heritage by UNESCO since 1999, contains fossil sites which have yielded hominid remains and/or non-human primates (Cercopithecoidea). Robert Broom was the first to prospect for fossils at Bolt's Farm Cave System (or BFCS), and this since 1936. Research only became regular in 2006 with the...

Haasgat is a primate-rich fossil locality in the northeastern part of the Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa UNESCO World Heritage Site. Here we report the first hominin identified from Haasgat, a partial maxillary molar (HGT 500), that was recovered from an ex situ calcified sediment block sampled from the locality. The in situ fossil bearing de...

Newly discovered in situ Primates and Mammals from the early Pleistocene Haasgat deposit, South Africa

Les restes d’hominidés1 fossiles sont généralement trouvés dans des niveaux géologiques contenant aussi des Cercopithecoidea. Ils ont donc partagé plus ou moins les ressources des mêmes milieux. En Afrique du Sud, la biodiversité de ces Cercopithecoidea était aussi importante qu’en Afrique de l’Est. Dans le Cradle of Humankind, il existe de nombre...

Since 2006, the HRU team has systematically prospected the fossiliferous area of Bolt's Farm located near the Sterkfontein Caves in the Cradle of Human kind World Heritage Site (Gauteng Province, South Africa). To date, Bolt's Farm has yielded more than 30 fossiliferous sites. In this article, new sites discovered in 2010 are presented. Some of the...

Waypoint 160 is a breccia occurrence in a dolomite solution cavity on Bolt's Farm on the southern margin of the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage site in South Africa. The calcified breccia has yielded microfauna that has been dated between 4.0 and 4.5 million years. Here we present the first evidence for Parapapio, an extinct monkey, from Waypoin...