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Diamonds in the desert: The discovery of Otavipithecus namibiensis
Author(s) -
Conroy Glenn C.,
Pickford Martin,
Senut Brigitte,
Mein Pierre
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
evolutionary anthropology: issues, news, and reviews
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.401
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1520-6505
pISSN - 1060-1538
DOI - 10.1002/evan.1360020206
Subject(s) - desert (philosophy) , geography , australopithecus , out of africa , archaeology , hominidae , geology , ethnology , paleontology , biological evolution , history , biology , genetics , philosophy , epistemology
The mountains and deserts of Namibia hide many treasures—diamonds, gold, uranium, strategic minerals. But on the afternoon of June 4, 1991, we were searching Namibia's mountains for a rarer kind of stone, fossilized evidence of human evolution in southern Africa. What we found instead was the rarest “diamond” of all, one that no one had ever seen before on the African continent south of equatorial East Africa. What we found was incontrovertible evidence that prehuman “apes” were living in southern Africa millions of years before Australopithecus roamed the veld.