Chapter · South Africa · Land
A child in the limestone
Four pages from 1925, and the cradle of humankind
Late in 1924 a student brings her professor of anatomy a fossil skull blasted out of a lime quarry. A few weeks later a four-page paper appears that gives South Africa its nickname, the cradle of humankind, and that almost nobody believes. This path reads that paper, and what Unesco says today about the same sites.
Context first
A lesson to read before the others, to set the scene.
- The place
- The era
- The people
The lessons in this chapter
- 1A student, a quarry, a faceThe most famous fossil in South Africa owes its existence to a chain of accidents: a blast, a student, a geologist passing through, and weeks spent scraping a block of limestone.10 min
- 2A six-year-old childDart concludes nothing from an impression: he measures canines to the half millimetre, an orbital index, a head-balancing index, and names the species Australopithecus africanus while quoting Darwin.11 min
- 3Why the veldt and not the forestDart turns round the objection he knows is coming: if the country was dry and dangerous, then intelligence is what made life possible there. It would take twenty-five years and the fall of a forgery before anyone listened.11 min
How these lessons are written
Each lesson starts from first-hand sources: Wikisource, Gallica, Persée, archives, museums and institutes. A fact without a source does not get written, and every lesson lists its own as direct links.
The rhythm
A lesson is five minutes of cards and four questions. Those questions then come back the next day, then at 3, 7, 21 and 60 days, and that return is what makes it stick. One a day is enough, and you can do several in a row.