Deputy Minister of Arts and Culture, Dr Phaahla;
Vice Chancellor and Principal, Prof Loyiso Nongxa;
Vice Chancellor and Principal Designate, Prof Habib;
Deputy Vice Chancellor Research, Prof Helen Laburn;
Acting Dean of the Faculty of Science Prof. Helder Marques;
Director of the Evolutionary Studies Institute, Prof Bruce Rubidge;
Members of the media; and
Distinguished guests.
It’s a great pleasure to be here with you this evening on the occasion of the launch of the South African Palaeosciences Strategy and the Palaeosciences Centre of Excellence.
When the Mail & Guardian graded the government ministers at the end of last year they declared that it was “too soon to grade” me as I had only been Minister of Science and Technology for about two months then. But they did say this much, and I quote, “Hanekom has several pet projects in the department. None is more important to him than Palaeontology”. If I do have a passion for this wonderful branch of science, I’m sure you will understand. It does, after all, encompass so many of the wonders of science, talks about us, and where we all come from.
South Africa's prolific evidence of the origins of life on earth has shed significant new light on how life on our planet has evolved over millions of years. Through our increasing mastery of the two disciplines that in different ways, delve into what happened a long time ago, namely palaeontology and astronomy, we are fast becoming world leaders on unveiling the mysteries of the past – how the universe came to be, what made us what we are today, and what significance this knowledge may have for our decisions about our future.
Let me start with astronomy, the science that takes us right back to the beginning of time. Last year on Africa Day, South Africa was announced as the host country for Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope - one of the great science projects of the 21st century. This project is of such magnitude that the SKA central computer will have the processing power of about one hundred million PCs, and the dishes of the SKA will produce 10 times the data of the current global internet traffic. It will serve as a giant magnet for science in South Africa. The SKA will be far more sensitive than any telescope that exists anywhere in the world today. It will enable scientists to address fundamental unanswered questions about our Universe, including the formation and evolution of stars, galaxies and quasars, the nature of gravity and dark matter and may even answer the perennial question: is their intelligent life out there?
While astronomy explores the universe and the very distant past, the discipline of palaeoscience aims to reveal the history of life on earth – our small part of this universe - over a period extending from deep time to our recent past, but over a period long before there was written history. The answers to these questions cannot be obtained from written records but have to be interpreted from rocks and sediments.
In the famous words of the late Professor Phillip Tobias "Africa gave the world humanity, and that is no small thing", but the spread of humanity around the world and burgeoning global population growth has had a profound impact on our natural resources, and presents us with the greatest of all challenges: what do we need to do to ensure a sustainable future for humanity. So, as the SKA seeks to understand the ancient origins of the universe, the Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences will answer fundamental questions on the origin of life on earth, the development of ecosystems and understanding mass extinctions and their causes.
The palaeo- and evolutionary sciences are the only disciplines able to provide reliable information on past biodiversity. They are thus key to understanding not only the development and history of life on Earth, but are becoming increasingly important in improving our understanding of the effects of climatic changes and catastrophes on the biodiversity of our planet. This is particularly relevant as the world grapples to understand the current biodiversity crisis in the light of what has been labelled the sixth extinction, where more than 50 000 species are going extinct every year, and the causes and mechanisms that drive biodiversity change.
The long-ranging and rich fossil and archaeological record we have in our country makes us one of the few regions in the world offering tangible and comprehensive records of the past and thus the possibility of understanding both past and present changes in biodiversity. Indeed, at least three of the recognised five major global extinctions which have occurred over the past 500 million years are represented in the rock record of our country.
Because of the antiquity of the rock record of our country and the fact that South Africa has fossil bearing rocks of all different ages - from the oldest evidence of life on Earth more than 3.5 billion years ago, right to the relatively recent emergence of modern humans and culture, this country has a huge competitive advantage relative to any other country in the world when it comes to unravelling the history of life on earth. In fact, this unique antiquity of our rock record makes South Africa the only country in the world that can boast all of the following:
- the oldest evidence of life on Earth;
- the oldest multi-cellular animals;
- the most primitive land-living plants;
- the most distant ancestors of dinosaurs;
- the most complete record of the more than 80 million year ancestry of mammals,
- a remarkable record of the origins of humans and their earliest technological achievements over the last four million years.
This uniquely rich and time extensive fossil heritage of South Africa, coupled with the internationally competitive paleontological, paleoanthropological and archaeological research undertaken in this country, means that the story that we have to tell on the development of life is of great international significance. In fact it is not possible to write a comprehensive text on the development of life on earth without referring extensively to the South African fossil record.
New techniques are constantly being developed with which to probe and examine rocks and fossils, and our understanding is growing rapidly. In the longer term, research in the palaeosciences offers the prospect of providing a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of our environment - knowledge that can be used to develop a more sustainable way of living. This will shed new light on how life evolved on our planet.
But our research will also provide us with a deeper understanding of the current biodiversity crisis. Developing our understanding of Africa’s ancient heritage also makes a direct contribution to the broader challenge of achieving social cohesion and the creation of national identity and pride as this newly created CoE in Palaeosciences explores the common ancestry of all species, including humans.
Against this background it is clear that South Africa’s unique combination of a rich paleontological, palaeoanthropological and archaeological heritage, together with research excellence and experience in the field, positions our country to take the lead in international research in the Palaeosciences.
The National Research and Development Strategy of 2002 prioritises areas of research that are potentially world-class and could contribute towards leading-edge global knowledge. The DST’s Ten-Year Innovation Plan also identifies palaeontology as being one of South Africa’s key Science Missions, in which it is possible to exploit South Africa’s living laboratories of local resources and geographic advantage and it is thus an ideal field of scientific endeavour in which to establish a Centre of Excellence to spearhead research in the palaeosciences.
Our Strategy for the Palaeosciences states that ‘work on South African palaeosciences is of crucial national and international importance, because it provides proof of shared human origins, the mutual roots that bind all people within a common humanity. It provides answers to what occurred before humans existed, including the evolution of animal and plant life’. In this story there is a message for all; that the continued survival of the human species requires the development of more sustainable ways of living with the available natural resources and environments.
I am confident that this Centre we are launching today will make a substantial contribution towards this goal of positioning South Africa as a world leader in palaeosciences, collections and site management. Apart from knowledge development, a major outcome of this Centre is without a doubt human capital development at different levels from semi-skilled through to professional, and the creation of expertise and careers in newly developing opportunities in the economy such as palaeotourism.
Following a stringent and rigorous application and selection process, the CoE has been awarded to the proposal submitted by the University of the Witwatersrand to host a Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences together with its partners, the University of Cape Town, Iziko Museums in Cape Town; Albany Museum & Rhodes University in Grahamstown; National Museum in Bloemfontein; and Ditsong Museum in Pretoria. This Centre will support the vision of realising a South Africa and Africa united in promoting a new awareness of life in the past through the study of the continent’s rich heritage in fossils and artefacts for the intellectual enrichment and empowerment of all its people.
As we have heard this evening Wits University has a long and proud tradition of research in the palaeosciences and has recently amalgamated its two longstanding paleontological Research Institutes, the Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research and the Institute for Human Evolution, in a single large institute known as the Evolutionary Studies Institute. Placement of the CoE in Palaeosciences as a dynamic structure within the Evolutionary Studies Institute at Wits, which already has a demonstrable record for ground-breaking palaeoscience research and utilises cutting-edge research techniques to understand South Africa’s unique fossil and archaeological record, will ensure its sustained success. Because of the long involvement of Wits in Palaeoscience research, the Evolutionary Studies Institute is our country’s premium custodian of major fossil collections of international significance and the owner of two major fossil hominid sites (Swartkrans, and Sterkfontein), and is the central training facility for palaeontological research and education in South Africa. The Evolutionary Studies Institute adopts a multidisciplinary approach to research, incorporating numerous other disciplines to drive knowledge production.
While this Centre of Excellence will be a hub of ground-breaking multidisciplinary research programmes that map the history of life on Earth through the fossil record, it will simultaneously explore the driving mechanisms of biodiversity changes though time. Because of the public’s fascination with ancient history, and the importance of understanding the mechanisms for biodiversity change through time, the CoE will run an extensive public outreach programme, thereby assisting in providing a context for understanding the present biodiversity crisis, as well as creating the storyline for palaeotourism initiatives in an effort to provide much needed employment opportunities.
I am sure it won’t be too long before this new Centre of Excellence produces new groundbreaking research into our origins as a species. In doing so, it will greatly add to our country’s growing reputation as an innovator and a global leader in this field. This Centre has the potential to substantially enhance the development of human resources, research and innovation in our country and beyond, and will undoubtedly help to cement Africa’s presence in the world of science. I look forward to the research outcomes of the Centre and eagerly await its contributions to global knowledge.
Palaeoscience is a relatively new discipline – there is still a lot to learn and discover. Just a few minutes ago, we learnt of the new ground breaking and internationally significant fossil discoveries made by Prof Berger and his multidisciplinary team of over 100 scientists, academics, professionals and technicians from South Africa and around the globe!
The six studies describe how Australopithecus sediba walked, chewed and moved. The research indicates that Australopithecus sediba appears to be mosaic in its anatomy and presents a suite of functional complexes that are both different from that predicted for other australopiths, as well as that for early Homo. This study will have implications for interpreting the evolutionary processes that affected the mode and tempo of hominin evolution and the interpretation of the anatomy of less well preserved species. Congratulations to the team!
Research on several individuals from the Malapa Site in the Cradle of Humankind continues with more than 300 early human ancestor remains discovered in recent months amidst the remains of hundreds of fossilised flora and fauna, truly making South Africa a hub for palaeosciences research in the world.
Finally, I’d like to illustrate the importance of the work that researchers will be doing at this Centre with a quote from the American palaeontologist Stephen Stanley who said: “It is doubtful whether, in the absence of fossils, the idea of evolution would represent anything more than an outrageous hypothesis… The fossil record, and only the fossil record, provides direct evidence of major sequential changes in the Earth’s biota”.
Thank you.
