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https://www.kpbs.org/news/health/2026/02/04/how-a-black-fossil-digger-became-a-superstar-in-the-very-white-world-of-paleontology>
“Lazarus Kgasi walks with ease across a gently rolling landscape about an
hour's drive outside of Pretoria, South Africa. A few trees are sprinkled here
and there but it's mostly grass. Kgasi, a tall man with a big smile, knows the
place well.
"We are going to see a fossil site in the Cradle of Humankind," he says,
referring to the UNESCO World Heritage site that has produced a stunning trove
of early hominid fossils, helping prove that the African continent was indeed
the birthplace of humanity.
"This is where the story started," says Kgasi, age 52. "Every fossil here
help[s] us to reconstruct the past — to tell the story of where do we come
from."
When he arrives at a sunken pit of uneven stones and dirt that was once a cave,
Kgasi says, "I hear voices of our human ancestors." Some of those ancestors
left Africa to explore Europe. But others remained. "I'm the descendant of
[those] that stayed in Africa," he reflects. "And hence my skin color. It's [a]
bit darker to cater for the harsh African sun."
That darker skin color meant that Kgasi might have never ended up as a
professional paleontologist.
This is the story of how Kgasi became a prominent junior curator at the Ditsong
National Museum of Natural History in a field dominated by white researchers.”
Via Susan ****
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
