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from PART 5 - Introduction: The Racial Paradox: Sterkfontein, Smuts and Segregation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 May 2019
The story of the discovery of the Sterkfontein fossils begins in 1895. In that year Hans Paul Thomasset began quarrying for lime in the Sterkfontein area and especially in the Sterkfontein cave (Fig. 13.1).
About the same time, two other personalities with well-known names appeared on the scene. One was David Draper and the other Guglielmo Martinaglia; Draper's historical link was with the Kromdraai caves and Martinaglia's was with the Sterkfontein caves.
Early in the 1890s, Draper was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of London, the first South African-born Fellow to be elected to that distinguished Society. Draper contributed a number of papers to the London Society. At the same time he realised the need for a local Society. Largely as a result of his efforts, coupled with those of Dr Hugh Exton, there was formed in 1895 the Geological Society of South Africa. At its inaugural meeting in February 1895, Draper was elected its first secretary and treasurer.
At the first ordinary meeting of the new Society, held on 8 April 1895, Draper made the following important contribution to the discussion:
He had a short time ago visited the Kroomdraai caves [sic], or rather, the formations that once had been caves and he found them most interesting from a geological point of view. There was much to discover there. He, therefore, suggested that they make a beginning by making up a party to go and explore this interesting geological ground. They would make a thorough examination in four days, and the time would be well spent (Exton 1895: 10–11).
On 1 February 1895, Draper sent a box of bone-bearing breccia from Kromdraai to the British Museum of Natural History in South Kensington, London. The box of bones was accompanied by a letter dated 1 February 1895, part of which read:
Mass of rock containing a number of fragments of bones. This is from a cave on the farm Kromdraai situated about 16 miles west of Johannesburg. There is a bed of stalagmite with masses of rock in which the bone is abundant. It is really a cave deposit containing bone breccia or fragments of bone.
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