Johannesburg: Soweto, Apartheid Museum, and Cradle tours

Explore the history of Soweto, the Apartheid Museum, and the Cradle of Humankind on this guided tour (minimum two guests). Learn about the history of Soweto and its role in the apartheid era.
Explore the history of Johannesburg on a full-day tour. Visit the Apartheid Museum, the first of its kind in the world, illustrating the rise and fall of apartheid. Then, head to the Cradle of Humankind to see the oldest controlled use of fire by Homo erectus.

Start your day with a visit to the Apartheid Museum, the first of its kind in the world, illustrating the rise and fall of apartheid. The museum is a superb example of design, space, and landscape offering the international community a unique South African experience.

The exhibits have been assembled and organized by a multi-disciplinary team of curators, film-makers, historians, and designers. They include provocative film footage, photographs, text panels, and artifacts illustrating the events and human stories that are part of the epic saga known as apartheid.

A series of twenty-two individual exhibition areas takes the visitor through a dramatic emotional journey that tells a story of a state-sanctioned system based on racial discrimination and the struggle of the majority to overthrow this tyranny.

Then, head to the Cradle of Humankind, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In 1935, Robert Broom found the first ape-man fossils at Sterkfontein and began work at this site. In 1938, a young schoolboy, Gert Terrblanche, brought Raymond Dart fragments of a skull from nearby Kromdraai which later were identified as Paranthropus robustus.

Also in 1938, a single ape-man tooth was found at the Cooper’s site between Kromdraai and Sterkfontein. In 1948, the Camp-Peabody Expedition from the United States worked at Bolts Farm and Gladysvale looking for fossil hominids but failed to find any.

Later in 1948, Robert Broom identified the first hominid remains from Swartkrans cave. In 1954, C.K. Brain began working at sites in the Cradle, including Cooper’s Cave. He soon would initiate his three-decade work at Swartkrans cave; it would result in the recovery of the second-largest sample of hominid remains from the Cradle.

The oldest controlled use of fire by Homo erectus was also discovered at Swartkrans and dated to over 1 million years ago. In 1966, Phillip Tobias began his excavations of Sterkfontein which are still continuing and are the longest continuously running fossil excavations in the world.

In 1991, Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand discovered the first hominid specimens from the Gladysvale site making this the first new early hominid site to be discovered in South Africa in 48 years. In 1994, Andre Keyser discovered fossil hominids at the site of Drimolen.

In 1997, Kevin Kuykendall and Colin Menter of the University of the Witwatersrand found two fossil hominid teeth at the site of Gondolin. Also in 1997, the near-complete Australopithecus skeleton of “Little Foot”, dating to around 3.3 million years ago (although more recent dates suggest it is closer to 2.5 million years ago), was discovered by Ron Clarke.

لضمان التوفر، احجز في أقرب وقت ممكن. الحجز المبكر يستحق النظر خاصة إذا كنت تخطط للرحلة خلال موسم الذروة مثل العطلات العامة أو عطلات نهاية الأسبوع.

يمكنك إلغاء هذه الرحلة بدون تكلفة حتى 24 ساعات قبل بدء الرحلة. إذا قمت بالإلغاء بعد 24 ساعات أو لم تحضر في الرحلة، فسيتم تحصيل السعر الكامل للنشاط. التأخر في الاستلام أو المغادرة سيعتبر كعدم حضور.