New South Africa Puts Emphasis on Reclaiming

10 YEARS A FTER A PARTHEID for 70 million years. With the government setting the priori- ties, some scientists were bound to feel left out in the cold. According to medical bio- New South Africa Puts Emphasis chemist Wieland Gevers, the government has turned a deaf ear to On Reclaiming Humanity’s Past his funding requests for the Institute of Infec- Some of the world’s most famous archaeological sites are to be found in South Africa, tious Disease and Mol- but so far few blacks have entered the field ecular Medicine, a new biomedical research fa- ELANDS BAY,SOUTH AFRICA—It might not ducing whole skeletons,” says Phillip cility that he founded look like prime real estate, but this rocky Tobias, a paleoanthropologist at the Uni- on the University of outcrop studded with prickly fynbos bush- versity of the Witwatersrand in Johannes- Cape Town campus in es and boulders has been a penthouse of burg, probably because our unfortunate an- 2001. So far, its funding sorts since the dawn of humanity. From the cestors either fell or climbed down into the has come from grants cool shade of a rock shelter in the sand- cave and couldn’t get back out again. As a that its 25 staff scien- stone face, the earliest known Homo sapi- result, he says, researchers have the unique Responding to tists brought with them ens could enjoy an unobstructed view of opportunity to study a “diversity of speci- the challenges. or from private dona- the Verlorenvlei River valley and the mov- mens cheek by jowl.” NRF president tions. “It’s a paradox,” ing feast—a dozen varieties of antelope— From Verlorenvlei to Sterkfontein and Khotso Mokhele. Gevers says. “We’re in that grazed on the grassy banks. hundreds of sites in between, South Africa a country with more Archaeologists have unearthed a treas- has become “probably the best place in the than 5 million people infected with HIV, the ure-trove of artifacts un- highest rate of tuberculosis, and malaria on der the packed dirt of the its borders, yet we can’t get support for a shelter’s floor. Among major new institute for infectious diseases.” the finds are the remains Instead, he complains, funding is lavished of a cooking hearth, a on projects with little relevance to the coun- trash pile that consists try’s immediate needs: “It’s money going in- mostly of seafood shells, to the stars.” and fragments of ostrich Adam disputes that characterization. He eggshell etched with notes that the leveraging strategy used to geometric patterns, land big astronomy projects in South Africa which some claim are has also won international collaboration in the oldest examples of health research. “In the past couple of years, symbolic expression we pumped a lot of cash into the whole bio ever found. The deepest area,” he says. “If you look at the growth layer being uncovered is area, it’s not astronomy, it’s biotech.” estimated to be almost Mokhele notes that in 2001 NRF 100,000 years old. Clos- Homegrown talent. South Africa has abundant rock art, now used in launched a strategy for responding to South er to the present surface, the national crest. Africa’s development challenges. With the accumulated dirt has broad titles such as “Unlocking the future: yielded stone tools of increasing sophistica- world to study where we came from,” says Advancing and strengthening strategic tion. And painted on the walls with red John Parkington, a prehistoric archaeologist knowledge” and “Sustainable livelihoods: ochre possibly as many as 20,000 years ago at UCT. “It is certainly one of the cradles of The eradication of poverty,” the categories are graceful images of antelopes next to hu- humanity” where many of the key fossils for are intended to draw in scientists from a man handprints. Under this sheltering stone the modern theory of human ancestry have range of disciplines. “Instead of saying, ceiling is “the oldest record of human cul- been unearthed. Hoping to build on its natu- ‘This is chemistry, physics, sociology, or tural evolution in the world,” says Cedric ral endowment of Paleolithic riches, the psychology,’ we’re saying, ‘Here are the Poppenpoel, an archaeologist at the Univer- South African government has designated challenges that we’re responding to. How sity of Cape Town (UCT), who is directing human origins research as one of its priori- does your scholarship and research respond the excavation. ties for basic research funding, although so to them?’ ” Mokhele explains. And this is only one of a plethora of far it has limited support mostly to the hand- Many South African researchers insist that sites in South Africa that reveal not only ful of well-known sites. But some experts they are eager to pick up that gauntlet. “Fairly the origins of human culture but also the see an equally important task in transform- ordinary scientists can actually make a huge evolutionary transition from ape to human. ing the demographics of their white- difference in whether things succeed or fail Some 1200 kilometers to the northeast, the dominated research community. here,” says astronomer Patricia Whitelock of Sterkfontein cave near Johannesburg has Bringing South Africa’s ancient wonders the South African Astronomical Observatory. offered up one of the richest sources of to light didn’t always receive such encourage- And in stark contrast to how things were a early hominid remains in the world, with ment. During the apartheid era, “I received mere decade ago, black researchers will have over 600 specimens so far including the absolutely no financial support from the gov- just as large a role as their white peers in famous “Little Foot,” a 3-million- to 4- ernment” for excavations, says Tobias. keeping the scientific community—and the million-year-old skeleton of an australo- Strongly influenced by the conservative country—afloat. –CHARLENE CRABB pithecine, our recent apelike ancestor. Dutch Reform Church, the apartheid govern- CREDIT: (RIGHT)AND JOSETTE LENARS/CORBIS CHARLES Charlene Crabb is a science writer based in Paris. “Sterkfontein is unusually good for pro- ment was loath to fund research on evolution www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 304 16 APRIL 2004 377 10 YEARS A FTER A PARTHEID “that contradicted the Bible,” he says. More- cline,” with the number of museum and uni- “democratize” the science: “We should have over, Tobias and other researchers were often versity positions “shrinking since the a cast of Little Foot in every school’s class- cut off from their colleagues overseas by the 1980s.” Over the past decade, the need for room so that children are proud of what they antiapartheid movement’s academic boycott. new student scholarships and faculty posi- have here.” The government is doing its part This made it “often impossible to attend con- tions “has not been met.” Tobias agrees but to promote such feelings at a higher level, ferences or to publish in many journals.” predicts that prospects could soon improve. for example by rejoining UNESCO and suc- Perhaps no one has a better perspective “There hasn’t been a flood of black students cessfully nominating 13 Paleolithic caves as on how things have changed here than Pop- yet,” he says, but the numbers are improv- World Heritage sites. It has also placed penpoel. In 1962, at the age of 17, Poppen- ing, at least at the undergraduate level. rock-art images of human figures in the cen- poel entered the field of archaeology at the This is one area where the rest of Africa ter of the new national crest. only level allowed to blacks under apartheid: is coming to South Africa’s rescue. Tobias “I’m enormously optimistic about the as a laborer. He was hired by Barbara An- notes that black paleoanthropologists from future,” says Tobias, who is retiring after a thony, an archaeologist now retired from the rest of Africa are coming here as visiting 60-year career. He was one of a minority Harvard University. As they excavated a re- faculty members, providing black students of scientists here who were openly critical mote Stone Age site in the Western Cape with badly needed role models. And in of the apartheid government’s racist poli- province, “she continuously fed me with in- terms of the job market, he adds that the cies. With apartheid finally behind them, formation and books,” Poppenpoel recalls, government’s renewed support of the field— “South Africa will be a world center for and within a year he “fell in love with ar- which is still largely at the planning stage— the study of human evolution,” and in- chaeology.” After the dig, Anthony brought is already having “wonderful knock-on ef- evitably, says Tobias, black researchers Poppenpoel to the South African Museum in fects,” such as the construction of the Hu- will be leading the way. In a very real Cape Town, where he helped her sort and man Evolution Research Institute at the Uni- sense, he says, “we are all Africans.” analyze artifacts. One day at the museum he versity of the Witwatersrand. –JOHN BOHANNON was approached by Raymond Inskeep, a Looking ahead, Parkington sees a need to John Bohannon writes from Oxford, U.K. renowned UCT archaeologist, who later moved to the University of Oxford, U.K. “He asked me if I’d like to go to the Univer- sity of Cape Town to study archaeology.” Poppenpoel was thrilled but anxious: “There had never been a single black ar- Astronomers Attempt to chaeology student there.” To get around the apartheid ban on him studying there, Stay in the Big League Inskeep arranged for the archaeology de- partment to employ Poppenpoel as a staff The South African government has made the controversial decision to invest heavily in member, providing a loophole for him to at- astronomy, as an inspiration to the nation’s youth tend classes.

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