Who will be shaping the conference experience, to provide delegates with essential insights, networking opportunities, and inspiration?
We’re delighted to announce the Organising and Programme committees for the WCSJ2025 taking place in Tshwane, South Africa! Click through to the links above to learn who’s who. And stay tuned for the call for proposals, which will be launched in June 2024! If you have not already subscribed to receive news directly from the conference please add your details here
WCSJ25 Excursions: here’s a sneak peek
The universe was formed about 14-billion years ago. The Earth is about 4.6-billion years old.
Life first emerged about 3.8-billion years ago. Our journey begins in South Africa, where fossils of some of the earliest known life forms on Earth have been found.
South Africa has yielded fossils of some of the earliest known dinosaurs, dating back at least 200 million years. Fossils of our very distant mammal-like ancestors, which lived more than 200 million years ago, have also been found in South Africa.
Africa is the birthplace of humankind. This is where our collective umbilical cord lies buried.
Hominids – the ancestors of modern humans – first emerged about seven million years ago, in Africa.
Attend WCSJ2025, and you can view the vast arc of evolution, just one hour from the conference venue.
We will visit the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site – one of the world’s richest fossil sites. Here we will find:
- The Maropeng Visitor Centre, an award-winning, world-class exhibition, focusing on the development of humans and our ancestors over the past few million years. Take a journey through time, starting with the formation of the planet and moving all the way through the evolutionary processes that culminated in the world as we know it today. See fossils, learn about how humankind was born, view stone tools that are up to one million years old, and much more. This interactive tour allows you to take all the time you need to ponder humanity’s fascinating origin story.
- The Sterkfontein Caves, a fascinating museum display of cave formations and geology, early life forms, mammals, and hominid fossils, among other topics. Here you will be introduced to “Mrs Ples”, the “Taung Child” and “Little Foot” before heading underground to explore the caves, where scientists have discovered many hominid and other animal fossils dating back more than 4-million years to the birth of humanity.
- Active scientific dig sites, where researchers are painstakingly reconstructing humanity’s complex origin story. These sites are often visited by world-renowned experts in the field, and have hosted major scientific announcements, such as the discovery of “Little Foot”, Homo naledi and Australopithecus sediba.