How an Ethiopian lab built the world’s largest human ancestor collection
Ethiopia is now home to the world’s largest collection of human ancestor fossils, thanks to a pioneering laboratory established at the National Museum in Addis Ababa.
The lab, founded in the late 1980s by Ethiopia’s first paleoanthropologist, Berhane Asfaw, was set up to prevent the export of fossils for foreign research and to build local scientific expertise in human evolution.
Before the lab’s establishment, all fossils discovered in Ethiopia were routinely sent abroad for examination, leaving Ethiopians with little opportunity to study their own heritage. “Because everything discovered in Ethiopia was exported, there was no chance for Ethiopians to study the items and develop expertise,” Berhane said.
With support from American colleagues, Berhane secured funding to equip the facility with tools to clean fossils encased in sediment, a process that can take years, and to produce precise replicas for international researchers. “Once we had the lab organised, there was no need to export fossils. We could do everything in-house,” he said.
Today, the lab houses approximately 1,600 fossils representing 13 of the more than 20 confirmed species of early humans, all stored securely in bullet-proof safes. The collection includes specimens dating back 6 million years, such as Ardipithecus kadabba, through to 160,000-year-old Homo sapiens fossils, confirming Ethiopia’s status as the “cradle of mankind.”
Berhane emphasised the unique continuity of Ethiopia’s fossil record. “Ethiopia is the only place on Earth where you can find fossils stretching that far back to the present, without any gaps in the record,” he noted.
Among the prized finds is “Lucy,” the 3.2 million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis skeleton discovered in 1974, which remains a symbol of Ethiopia’s archaeological legacy.
This story is written and edited by the Global South World team, you can contact us here.
