Travel to South Africa in 2024
South Africa—the Cradle of Humankind—and home to one of IHO's long-term field sites at Pinnacle Point
IHO has a wonderful itinerary for a trip across South Africa—from Cape Town culture and city life, to fossil sites at Sterkfontein and Drimolen, to Mossel Bay and IHO research at early modern human cave sites, to Johannesberg museums—with a winery visit sometime in between of course! The trip will wrap up at a lodge overlooking an open plain to see the African mammals, birds, and reptiles in their natural environments.
The trip is led by paleoanthropologist Kaye Reed and geologist David Feary, with archaeologist Curtis Marean leading the group at Mossel Bay. Reed and Marean are IHO research scientists and professors in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change. Reed led the research team in 2013 that discovered the earliest fossil of our own genus Homo, and she is an expert in understanding animal and environmental conditions over the last three to four million years. Marean has been leading research teams at Pinnacle Point, South Africa, studying the earliest modern humans for over 25 years and is an Honorary Professor in the African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience at Nelson Mandela University. Feary is a researcher with the ASU School of Earth and Space Exploration and a marine geologist/geophysicist whose research has focused on past climate records and sea level variations, primarily addressing the influence of paleoclimate on carbonate reef growth and the records of past climates conditions.
IHO is traveling again with Journeys By Design, who we worked with for our Ethiopia 2024 trip, and together with IHO's trip leaders have created a fabulous itinerary filled with both great science and wonderful cultural and wildlife experiences.
The trip will run from June 26 to July 7, 2024, and the cost of the trip will be around $9,800 per person (excluding roundtrip airfare).
The Institute of Human Origins organizes these trips as friend- and fund-raising ventures, and so requests a donation of $2,500 per person payable to the ASU Foundation* to benefit research, student scholarships, and public outreach for the ASU Institute of Human Origins through the ASU Foundation for a New American University.
But the benefits are endless—traveling through the Cradle of Humankind with some of the world's experts in human origins and our earliest life on the planet as modern humans—an experience that you cannot find anywhere else!
Interested? Contact Julie Russ at jruss@asu.edu.
*Your gift of $2,500 per person will be deposited with the ASU Foundation for a New American University, a separate nonprofit organization that exists to support ASU. Gifts in support of ASU are subject to foundation policies and fees. Please consult with your tax advisor regarding the deductibility of charitable contributions