The Maropeng Visitor Centre is an exciting, world-class exhibition, focusing on the development of humans and our ancestors over the past few million years. Maropeng means “returning to the place of origin” in Setswana, the main indigenous language in this area of South Africa. Our ancestors have lived in this area for more than 3-million years.

The Sterkfontein Caves – about 50 km from Johannesburg – is the site of some of the most important discoveries concerning the evolution of man and have been declared a World Heritage Site.   If it’s true that Africa is the cradle of all mankind – and most palaeontologists believe this to be so – then Sterkfontein Caves is surely one of the continent’s sacred sites. The Sterkfontein caves have been described as the ‘anthropological treasure-house of the world’.