Maropeng is located in a county called Magaliesberg, outside of Johannesburg and their slogan on the area map is: “A whole lot of living where life began!” Maropeng is like a science center, a family oriented museum. Lots of interactive displays and a tour that begins with an odd ‘boat’ ride supposively showing the beginnings of earth. The main exhibits talked about the earth’s creation over billions of years and detailed explanations of human evolution. I was wondering what the religious fundamentalists would think. Wendy at Apricot Hill said there were plenty of fundamentalists in South Africa that didn’t like Maropeng. The exhibits seemed to talk separately about continent formation on one side, then fossil finds on the other. At the end it made sense, they talked about the effect humans have on the earth’s environment and showed interesting figures about food production and who gets to eat. Also the advantages/disadvantages of living together, how big cities affect the earth. Fairly political in some parts. Most of the museum is underground, you enter through a visitor center that has grasses on one side of the structure and looks very futuristic on the other side. There’s a nice restaurant with a view of the area where I had lunch.
(If you double click on the photo it enlarges)
Here’s the futuristic side of the visitor center with a bird perched on a pole.
A recreation of various hominids, some don’t look too happy to be fenced in.
A display of teeth on an exhibit of food- how fire, tools allowed humans to evolve.
A message about poverty and the environment.
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