Photo's by Carel Venter
(This animated Gif was created by photographing the original
skull of Mrs Ples at the Transvaal Museum, and alligning it.)
Australopithecus africanus is the scientific name of ape-like human creatures that lived in southern
Africa between about 3 and 2.5 million years ago. The first skull of this species, discovered in 1924
at Taung, about 120 km north of Kimberly, and described by Professor Raymond Dart of the
University of the Witwatersrand (In Gauteng) , represented a young child about 3 years old. Dr
Lee Berger and Dr Ron Clarke, also of the University of the Witwatersrand, have suggested that a
large bird (Perhaps an eagle) may have carried the skull to the cave where it was found.
Other specimens of Australopithecus africanus have been discovered by Professor Tobias and
his colleagues at Sterkfontein. These creatures had small brains, similar in size to those of
chimpanzees.
They had the ability to walk upright, but may also have been quite agile in trees in localised forest
environments.
Scientists believe that humans and chimpanzees had a common ancestor that lived on the African
continent more than 5 million years ago. Mrs Ples is one of the descendants of that common
ancestor for humans and chimpanzees.
Photo: Emil Bihl
Another form of australopithecine, called Australopithecus robustus, has been found at several sites in South Africa, including Swartkrans and Kromdraai in the Sterkfontein Valley. A. robustus lived between about 2 and 1.5 million years ago, and it is believed that this species became extinct between 1.5 and 1 million years ago.
- From: Mrs Ples-Our distant ancestor: A pamphlet written by Dr F. Thackeray of the Transvaal Museum-
<Click here to see the exact location of where Mrs. Ples was Found>
It was the little teeth sockets in the 2,5-million-year-old skull that did it.
Examining them on discovering the skull at the Sterkfontein Caves in April 1947, Dr Robert Broom
decided they were those of a female.
Fifty years later, however, the gender of Mrs Ples, Africa’s most celebrated fossil ancestor, is in
doubt. Some scientists now believe that she may, in fact, be a he. “The skull was misidentified,”
says Dr Francis Thackeray, the curator of the fossil and one of the scientists supporting Mrs Ples
gender change. Thackeray, who was first introduced to Mrs Ples as a child of six by a friend of his
father and Broom’s assistant, Dr John Robinson, was reunited with Mrs Ples in 1971, when he
joined the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria as a palaeontologist. He believes that the shape of the
cheek bones and bone structure around the mouth of the skull indicate that Mrs Ples was a male .
Over the the millennia, he says, the skull of this long-distant relative of Homo Sapiens rolled down
the cave, landing at the bottom on sediment. Animals walked over it, wearing it down and teeth fell
out, creating a misleading picture. Rather than the teeth having been small and therefore feminine,
Thackeray says, they may have been large and therefore male.
Not all scientists, however, are convinced she’s a man. Professor Phillip Tobias, a
palaeoanthropologist at Wits University, says he toyed with the concept of a male Mrs Ples for a
couple of decades but has come to the conclusion that she is, indeed a woman. He says he began
to doubt her sexual identity as long ago as 1961 because of the large size of her brain capacity.At
485cm3 , it was the biggest among the small sample available for study. “I am sorry to say it, but
it’s well known that male primates have bigger brains than females,” says Tobias. Since then,
however, more examples had been found-the latest with a brain capacity 100 cm3 bigger than that
of Mrs Ples. Science aside, Tobias’s instincts argue against Mrs Ples being a male. “I feel, quite
apart from the teeth, there are no distinctive male features about Mrs Ples. She still feels more
female to my eyes and fingertips.”
- From:The Sunday Times newspaper 2-2-1997 -
Written by Cos st Leger p13
 | From April 1 they’ll be celebrating , although on April 18 they should actually be singing “ Happy 50th birthday to you dear mrs Ples, happy 50th to you.” For it was on April 18, 1947 that Robert Broom used a wee touch of dynamite near the Sterkfontein Caves to blast mrs Ples’s skull out of its hiding place. The noise of that blast is still echoing around the evolution world, for it produced one of the missing links in Man’s evolutionary chain around 2,5 million years ago. |
Dr Broom initially called her Plesianthropus, meaning almost human, but today she’s had her name
changed scientific deedpoll to Australopithecus africanus, but Mrs Ples remains the world’s most
complete skull of species. She was just about over 1 meter tall, weighed about 25 to 30 kilograms
and had toes which could grasp branches or move upright through the plains. Recent investigations
using ultra modern technology have proved that she could walk upright, through the positioning of
the bones in her inner ear. And some of those same bits of modern technology are being used to
settle an old argument: is she Mrs or Mr Ples? To celebrate the 50th anniversary of her coming out,
so to speak, the Transvaal Museum will have Mrs Ples’s skull on display for one week only, at the
beginning April, before taking her down to Grahamstown for an international science conference.
And on April 1- and it’s not an joke -they will have Richard Dawkins, Professor of Public
Understanding of Science at Oxford University, delivering the seventh Robert Broom Memorial
Lecture. That will take place at the Synodal Centre in Visagie Street, Pretoria, at 7pm for 7.30
pm; and the title of Prof Dawkins’ lecture will be:” Is Evolution Progressive?” The surprising
thing is that the lecture will be free, but you have to book at the Transvaal Museum. Alternatively,
you could book via Dr Thackeray’s E-Mail, or send Mrs Ples birthday wishes. His address is
Mrsples@global.co.za.
After all, it couldn’t be anything else, could it?
Mrs Ples and other fossilis are kept at the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria where there are many
exhibitions on creatures that lived in South Africa millions of years ago. The Transvaal Museum is
situated opposite the City Hall in Paul Kruger Street, Pretoria(between Minaar and Visagie
Streets). Public displays are open 7 days a week.
Visiting Hours: Mon-Sat: 9:00-17:00
Sun:11:00-17:00
Entrance fees:
Adults R5.00 (SA)-
Children R2.50 (SA).
- Mrs Ples-Our distant ancestor: A pamphlet written by Dr F. Thackery of the Transvaal Museum-
