Cradle of Humankind and Lesedi

North-west of Johannesburg the land rolls away in grassy hills of pale dolomite, with farm fences and the odd windmill. Under them is a network of limestone caves that has given up fossil after fossil of our early relatives, which is why the area is a World Heritage Site and why it carries the name it does.

The finds have names. Mrs Ples, a skull found at Sterkfontein in 1947. Little Foot, a skeleton that took two decades to free from the rock. And, more recently, a relative nobody knew existed, Homo naledi, brought out of a cave called Rising Star through a gap so narrow that the excavators were chosen partly for their size.

Maropeng is where the story is told, and the name, in Setswana, means something close to returning to the place of origin. The visitor centre is built into a grassy mound on a hilltop, and inside, the exhibition runs from the forming of the planet to the first tools and the first fires, with the fossils and the people who found them alongside. It holds children’s attention better than most museums, and adults tend to stay longer than they planned.

In the afternoon the day moves from how people began to how they live now. Lesedi Cultural Village, in the Magaliesberg hills, is home to families from five of the country’s cultures, Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele, Sotho and Pedi, each with a homestead built in its own way, from grass beehive huts to boldly painted walls.

It starts with an orientation on South African history, given in several of the country’s languages, which puts everything after it in context. Then the homesteads, where your hosts show you how the houses are built and lived in, what the beadwork and the painted patterns mean, and how the old ways sit alongside modern lives. Singing and dancing follow, and then the traditional meal that ends the day.

Put Soweto on another day for the twentieth century. This day is the long view either side of it.

Good to know

• It runs on set days of the week. We fit it to your Johannesburg nights.
• Maropeng is mostly indoors; Lesedi is outdoors on uneven ground. Comfortable shoes.
• Ask before photographing anyone at Lesedi, as you would anywhere.
• Tell us about dietary needs before the day. The meal is planned ahead.
• Highveld sun is strong even when the air is cool. Hat and sunscreen for the afternoon.