Exploration is the key to discovery

Dr. Keneiloe Molopyane

Keneiloe is the Principal Investigator for Gladysvale Cave, an important fossil site within The Cradle of Humankind. The Cradle is a UNESCO World Heritage site 50 km northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa. After 20 years of inactivity at Gladysvale, with new eyes, Keneiloe and her team returned to the cave site, hoping to make new discoveries and further the narrative as told by the fossils. Two weeks into the expedition, they had found nothing new. Then suddenly, something happened...

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Keneiloe Molopyane is National Geographic Society 2021 Emerging Explorer. An archaeologist and biological anthropologist, she is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Exploration of the Deep Human Journey, University of the Witwatersrand. She has excavated with the team in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa, searching for fossil remains that will aid our understanding of human origins. She has an M.Sc. in bioarchaeology from the University of York (UK), and a Ph.D. in biological anthropology from the University of the Witwatersrand.

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