Origins and evolution
El bressol de la humanitat runs until January next year and is the largest archaeology exhibition Cosmocaixa's has ever put on, with displays of pieces from sites in Tanzania
A voyage back in time to the origins of mankind; a voyage into the African continent. This is what Cosmocaixa's exhibition, El bressol de la humanitat, proposes, which will be on show until January next year. The collection is dedicated to the evolution of human beings, and based on the archaeological and paleontological explorations of Olduvai Gorge in the Ngorongoro reserve (Tanzania), considered a key point of time in understanding the origin of our ancestors. The voyage takes us through the geology and ecology of the Great Rift Valley and offers a vision of the current state of paleontology, while reflecting on many of the questions which remain unanswered.
Elisa Duran, Deputy director general of the Fundació La Caixa, says that “this exhibition is the star of Cosmocaixa's season. The history of mankind has always had a prominent place in the centre and, in this case, the sample goes back four million years”. The exhibition “shows the work of experts at sites in Africa, and some very recent findings that back Darwin's theory that the origin of humanity was in Africa. For a long time it was thought that the origin of humanity was in Europe, then Java and even China. Today, the thesis of our African origin is almost unanimously accepted.”
Exhibits come from the National Museum of Tanzania, Dar es Salaam, and the excavations of the Olduvai Paleanthropologu Project (TOPPP). Audax Mabulla, director of heritage and the National Museum of Tanzania, stressed the exceptional nature of the exhibition because it is the first time that many of the pieces have left our country and most likely, this will not happen again.”
According to archeologist Enrique Baquedano, the Rift Valley is “one of the most spectacular sources of knowledge of the origin of humans. It is important to know where we come from and how we have arrived to what we are. Until now, we have never known so much about the origin of man.”
Among other jewels, visitors will be able to see original pieces and reproductions modelled from 3D scans showing the remains of fossil hominids, such as the famous Lucy, the first Australophitecus afarensis, discovered in 1974, the Turkana Boy and the Taung Child.
The show will also provide a mobile application with an audio guide in four languages (Catalan, Spanish, English and French), providing extra information about the exhibition. Meanwhile, families and younger visitors will be able to take part in treasure hunts, and try their hand in a laboratory that reconstructs the history of our ancestors based on fossils.