A visit to Malapa, ancient site of Australopithecus sediba A drive into the Greater Cradle Nature Reserve with views of a notable fossil hominin site.

#Australopithecussediba
#Malapa
www.johnhawks.net/p/a-visit-to...

A new phylogeny published! Australopithecus sediba gives rise to X-Men (in the Marvel Universe at least). @marvel @marvelcomicshqs.bsky.social @marvelentertainment.tumblr.com.web.brid.gy #xmen #Sediba #fossil #phylogenetics #malapa

MH-2 was discovered on Sept 4, 2008 at the site of Malapa. The approximately 2 million year old hominin partial skeleton has produced perhaps the most complete undistorted shoulder arm and hand of any ancient fossil human relative yet discovered. #Malapa #fossils #paleoanthropology #sediba

We are upgrading the #Malapa museum soon. Very exciting stuff to come! This video demonstrates that not only are the #hominin #fossils are famous from Malapa but so are some of the fauna - a tiny fox was used in the opening of Kong: Skull Island #kongskullisland ! Enjoy!

A close up of the calculus and tartar on the teeth of MH-1 from #Malapa discovered because of a CT scan showing the hollow under the 1t and 2nd molars. A paper in @nature.com by Henry et al 2012 was done on the diet of #sediba as the dental calculus had plant phytoliths that could be identified

Dr Job Kibii and me in front of the first remains of MH-1 (Holotype of Australopithecus #sediba from #Malapa ) recovered during Aug-Dec 2008 and the first months of 2009.. The block in the middle contains the unprepared skull Over Job’s left shoulder one can see the MH-2 skeleton.

The lightning struck tree near #Malapa cave, South Africa. On August 15th 2008 Matthew Berger (and our dog Tau) discovered beside it a block of breccia containing the first evidence of what would be described as a new, 2 million year old hominin species we would name #Australopithecus #sediba.

Context is King! In this reel I give a brief explanation about how we geolocate discoveries at #Malapa using both theodolite stations and a traditional grid system so that we always know where every fossil is to within a few millimeters of its position on Earth!

This is the 1st picture I took of #Malapa back in 2008 on the day I "discovered" the site. I was completely unaware of what wonders awaited me just a few weeks later as simply catalogued its location, took GPS coordinates and this single photograph, and then went about my survey!

The first moment of discovery of an important fossil, or concept, is one of the greatest thrills of exploration and science. Here is the first image ever taken of the #Malapa Hominin 2 skeleton of Australopithecus #sediba. I’ll let you try and spot the bones but I will show you in the comments

A firsthand look at the location of the discovery of the MH-2 skeleton form #Malapa

This is Block 051 from #Malapa which contains much of the remainder of the skeleton of the Holotype MH-1. The top picture was how the block looked when Justin Mukanku noticed the tooth and jaw outlined in the second image. The scan would show the block was full of hominin remains!

A baby sediba humerus from #Malapa! What a nice first day back at work surprise after a long weekend. Prepared by Samuel Olifile.