How to discover your own fossil site
- Wits University
Discovering a fossil site takes a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck. Professor Lee Berger describes the clues that led him to the discovery of Malapa.
Have you ever wondered how a fossil site is discovered? Perhaps wondered what it would be like to find one of the rarest fossil finds in history? In this lecture, Lee Berger takes us back to the discovery of Malapa, a site that has been described as one of the most important fossil finds of the early 21st century and led to the discover of a new species of ancient human relative, the two million year old Australopithecus sediba. In 2008, using Google Earth and walking over hundreds of kilometers of rugged landscape, the discovery would ultimately be made by his 10-year-old son Matthew. But not after lots of hard work and a little bit of luck. Lee describes the clues that led him to the discovery of the site, and the way in which technology can assist us in making new discoveries.