Field Guide to the Cradle of Humankind

Title: Field Guide to the Cradle of Humankind
Authors: Lee Berger; Brett Hilton-Barber
Publisher: Randomhouse Struik
Imprint: Nature
2nd revised edition. Cape Town, South Africa 2004
ISBN 9781770070653 / ISBN 978-1-77007-065-3
Softcover, 18 x 24 cm, 212 pages, throughout colour photos

Description: Field Guide to the Cradle of Humankind

Beneath the dolomitic outcrops and grasslands of the World Heritage Site lie a series of extensive underground caverns in which fascinating clues about our deepest past have been preserved. Known as the Cradle of Humankind, this unique area probably tells us more about the history of our earliest ancestors than any place of a comparable size elsewhere in the world. The thousands of fossils that have been extracted from the protected area are like individual jigsaw pieces from the puzzle of life. Pieced together, they show that our species is a product of the African landscape and that we are the result of far-reaching climatic changes that have played themselves out over the continent during the past three million years. Now in its second edition, Field Guide to the Cradle of Humankind describes how the puzzle fits together and which pieces are still missing. Using illustrations by some of the world's top palaeo-artists, and making liberal use of colourful photographs, diagrams and maps, the book makes prehistory come alive in an accessible and entertaining format. Field Guide to the Cradle of Humankind evokes the world in which our earliest ancestors lived; provides a guide to all the known hominin species; details all the sites within the area and describes its animals and plants, both past and present, to give the reader a context in which to understand who we are and where we have come from.