Point of Human Origins Experience

Enjoy a Point of Human Origins Experience at Pinnacle Point Caves, Mossel Bay - which have revealed the earliest evidence for modern human behaviour. Discover our shared past and connect to our collective future. It’ll change the way you think about being human.

The Point of Human Origins Experience is  conducted by Dr. Peter Nilssen (the archaeologist who, together with his colleague, Jonathon Kaplan, identified the site for science, and introduced it to the scientific community)

Each Point of Human Origins Experience includes an in-depth lecture with PowerPoint presentation on the modern human story, as well as a walking visit to at least one of the caves at Pinnacle Point

• The walk to the Caves includes a series of steep stairways, and requires a mild degree of physical fitness
• Maximum group size: 12 guests
• Duration: 3 - 4 hours
• Tours depart on selected dates, or by arrangement. Please contact us for details.
• http://www.humanorigin.co.za/

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The videos on this page provide an introduction to the archaeology of Pinnacle Point: both feature Prof. Curtis Marean, leader of the South African Coastal Palaeoclimate, Palaeoenvironment, Palaeoecology, and Palaeoanthropology (SACP4) Project - an ongoing study of both the Pinnacle Point Caves and the Middle Stone Age in the Southern Cape region. Curtis Marean is an associate director of the Institute of Human Origins and professor at the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University. The SACP4 Project produced its first significant paper in 2007 - ‘Early human use of marine resources and pigment in South Africa during the Middle Pleistocene’ - which was published in the peer-reviewed journal ‘Nature.’

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Peter Nilssen: Why archaeology?

For me, the archaeological record is like a road map of human development with signposts that indicate where we've been, what we've done, what has worked, and what hasn’t.

Our current situation on the planet clearly indicates that what we are doing doesn’t work- hence the death of our oceans, the death of species, the destruction of our fellow humans, the destruction of nature, and the insane belief that we are all separate, and that we need to kill each other and everything around us in order to survive.

Our present condition is overwhelmingly indicative of a dysfunctional and highly destructive species - a society hell-bent on devastation.

We are the single most dangerous animal roaming the earth.

While the Middle Stone Age was almost certainly never a rosy time for humans, people at that time were clearly doing something that worked, something that allowed our species to survive a near extinction event - the genetic bottleneck - sometime between 150, 000 and 200,000 years ago.

So what were they doing?

The archaeological record shows us that there were two major components of human behaviour that allowed us to survive. The first was technology (which indicates cognitive abilities) and the second was a belief system based on a close connection with the natural and animal world, and on a reverence for life - which I think of as ‘intuition’ or ‘spirituality.’

That belief system is still alive - barely - amongst the last remaining hunter gatherers such as the Australian aborigines and the San of the Kalahari.

The rest of us have excelled in technology, but - on the whole - we’re spiritually bankrupt. In my opinion it is the absence of the second behavioural attribute that has brought humanity to its knees. Instead of a connection to the planet that supports us, we worship power, and we’re allowing ourselves to be led over the cliff.

The significance of the archaeological record then, specifically the record of the Middle Stone Age, is that it is the record of the origins of all humans alive on the planet today. It is therefore a potentially powerful catalyst for unifying a desperately divided species.

If a belief system grounded in a reverence for all forms of life - and in the interconnectivity of animals (including humans) and the environment - is the thing that pulled us through that near extinction event nearly 200,000 years ago, then maybe we should take cognisance of the signposts on our road map, and start mending the hole that we created when we stopped living IN nature - when we started trying to live ON TOP of it, and trying to manipulate and control the planet’s finite resources for our short-term gain.

Our progression through the Middle Stone Age speaks to us all as one - rather than to our more recent histories of ‘us’ and ‘them.’ “The significance of the archaeological record then, specifically the record of the Middle Stone Age, is that it is the record of the origins of all humans alive on the planet today. “It is therefore a potentially powerful catalyst for unifying a desperately divided species. “ ~ Dr. Peter Nilssen