A young scientist painstakingly chipping away at the rocks in a massive dinosaur graveyard in Sterkspruit among a highly qualified team of palaeontologists has the Eastern Cape in her veins.
Palaeontologist Cebisa Mdekazi, 24, is among an 11-strong team of students and researchers from around the world who are working on what is believed to be one of the largest fossil collections on Earth at a site in Qhemegha, Sterkspruit.
Mdekazi grew up in Alice and Whittlesea and attended Adelaide Primary and Clarendon High in East London.
Her passion for palaeontology was ignited during a high school outing to the East London Museum with her grade 9 class, where they were given a lesson on the discovery of the coelacanth.
The ancient fish was discovered off the East London coast in 1938 and identified by late East London Museum curator Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, in 1939.
Turning to the dinosaur graveyard, the University of the Witwatersrand palaeontology masters student said she could not have imagined in her wildest dreams that such a huge discovery would be made in her home region – and that she would be one of those involved in researching the site.
Qhemegha Village is situated less than 250km from Mdekazi’s village of Lower Didimana in Whittlesea. She was born in Alice, before relocating to her grandparents’ home in Lower Didimana.
“I have always enjoyed the natural sciences, drawing inspiration from my mother, who is a retired primary school natural sciences teacher, as well as my life sciences teachers throughout my primary and high school years. It therefore came as no surprise when I pursued earth sciences in university,” she said.
Mdekazi completed her undergraduate studies at Wits, majoring in geology and biology, before graduating with an honours degree in palaeontology from the same university.
She is now working on understanding the evolution of locomotion (movement) in crocodiles and their ancestors.
She aims to complete her PhD before she turns 30.
She is working on the site with professors from five top universities – Oxford, Birmingham, Zurich, Wits and Johannesburg.
“It has been such an incredible experience digging fossils on sites in my home province and working with my people,” an excited Mdekazi said.
“We’ve been working in Qhemegha for just under two weeks and it has been an extremely successful trip in that we found [plenty] of fossils.
“We are hopeful that there is still much more to be discovered here,” she said.
This is the fourth site she has worked on but the current dig has special significance for Mdekazi.
“The three previous trips do not compare to what we found in Qhemegha.
“The whole Senqu Municipality is the most fossil-rich area I have ever come across.
“Usually one finds part of the skeleton or finds fossils that have fallen out of the rock and are no longer in a good condition,” she said.
“Some of the specimens that we found in Qhemegha are still within the rock, which is the most ideal state, because scientists are then able to estimate the age of that fossil quite accurately because the rocks help us understand the type of environment that the animal lived in.”
Mdekazi said she was humbled that the person who found the bones was herdsman Dumangwe Tyhobela.
“He only has a grade 5 education, but his curiosity and grit were immense,” she said.
“Mr Tyhobela’s determination is such an inspiration because it shows that anyone with an interest, irrespective of their level of education, can help contribute to a major discovery such as this one.”
- DispatchLIVE