Cape’s queen of flora

The African savannah was humankind’s original home – the landscape where our ancient ancestors started walking around on two legs about seven million years ago. More recently, however, researchers have uncovered strong evidence which shows that it was probably at the Cape where modern humans really came into their own.

It was perhaps near a place like Kogelberg, on the shorelines between the mountains and ocean, where, about 100 000 years ago, humans started to think creatively and symbolically for the first time. Here, you can imagine, our ancestors could take a good ol’ break from the 9-to-5 grind of surviving on the savannah.