The IRL Homen team meets in Paris

From September 5 to 20, 2022, CR2P is pleased to welcome two South African colleagues in the framework of the exchanges of the IRL HOMEN CNRS-NRF, directed by Dominique Gommery for the French part, and of the Mission Paléoanthropologique Franco-Sud-Africaine (MPFSA) financed by the MEAE (Ministère de l'Europe et des Affaires Etrangères). They are Nonhlanhla Vilakazi, researcher at the PR-I (Palaeo-Research Institute) of the University of Johannesburg (UJ) and South African head of the IRL HOMEN, and Lazarus Kgasi, curator of the Plio-Pleistocene Palaeontology section of the Ditsong: National Museum of Natural History in Pretoria (formerly Transvaal Museum).

Nonhlanhla Vilakazi, Lazarus Kgasi and Dominique Gommery are all three co-licensees of the Bolt's Farm excavation, in the Cradle of Humankind, classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO since 1999. Let us recall that Nonhlanhla Vilakazi, Lazarus Kgasi are the first two holders of this type of permit from the black South African community since the presidential inauguration of Nelson Mandela.

Nonhlanhla Vilakazi and Lazarus Kgasi came to train in 3D imaging techniques (with Nathalie Poulet-Crovisier). The data from these techniques are widely used in recent studies. This training, which does not exist in South Africa, will allow Lazarus Kgasi to manage and increase the collection of these digital data directly within the original collections but also to ensure control and dissemination for study purposes. Nonhlanhla Vilakazi belongs to the generation of local South African paleontologists trained post-apartheid who do not have access to these tools available to researchers in the Northern Hemisphere. Teaching students from her community will allow her to pass on this knowledge to a new generation. Other activities and several working meetings with their French colleagues are also planned.

We wish them a good stay and a good training at CR2P.

• More information: IRL HOMEN - Hominids and environments: biodiversity evolution during the Plio-Pleistocene in the Cradle of humankind, South Africa.