About Origins
| Between 150 000 and 200 000 years ago modern Homo Sapiens evolved in Africa. They then left the continent and settled throughout the entire world - in the Middle East 100 000 years ago; in Asia and Europe 70 000 years ago and in the Americas 25 000 years ago. Africa is where our ancestors evolved into human beings and its only fitting that it is the centre of Johannesburg, the bustling cosmopolitan regional hub of Gauteng and South Africa that the Origins Centre museum has been established. The museum is a world-class facility that comprises two independent but closely linked museums. It was designed by a team of academics and designers from Wits University and aims to provide visitors with a unique experience of Africa’s rich, complex and sometimes mysterious past. Combining cutting edge technology with the creative vision of South Africa’s foremost artists, the narrative structure of the museum takes visitors through an extraordinary journey of discovery. The journey begins with the origins of humankind in Africa and then moves through the development of art, symbolism, technology—the very things that give us our humanity—on the continent. The journey then continues through the destruction of the great and diverse southern African rock art traditions—the world’s oldest continuous art forms—at the hands of colonists before ending, more positively, with the re-discovery of these ancient masterworks in a contemporary world. Unashamedly Africa-centric, the Origins Centre seeks to restore the continent to its rightful place in history—as the place where everything that makes us who we are today originated. This sentiment is captured in the museum’s motto: We are who we are because of who we were. At the Origins Centre visitors can:
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