Plio-Pleistocene Paleontology Section, Ditsong National Museum of Natural History

The Plio-Pleistocene Section has been a primary repository for fossil collections developed from the Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa UNESCO World Heritage Site designated in 1999. After nearly a century of active fieldwork collections accumulated since the 1930s, the Section encompasses a record of hundreds of thousands of catalogued early human, primate, and other fossil vertebrate materials excavated from across a series of historic and active palaeontological sites. The collections include the type specimens of Paranthropus robustus, the first adult specimens of Australopithecus africanus, and a critical sample of early Homo remains – in addition to hundreds of mammal type and paratype specimens across mammalian and other vertebrate orders. In addition to serving as a repository for excavated fossil materials, the Section (both historically and currently) is an active storage and processing facility for fossiliferous calcified sediments for field teams developing new fossil assemblages from sites across this region of South Africa. Finally, the Section has been at the forefront of digital specimen access developments, providing direct and open access to advanced research datasets that democratizes access to these singular fossil specimens.