Dar es Salaam--National Museum & Hominid Fossils

The National Museum, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

One of the main attractions to the National Museum is the "Zinj" skull and the Laetoli footprints, fossil evidence of early hominids discovered in Tanzania. The Museum has a well-curated exhibit for these two stars and does a good job of explaining how they fit into current evolutionary theory.
"Zinj" or Australopithecus Boisei (Zinjantropus) lived 1.75 million years ago. Discovered by Dr. Mary Leakey on 17th July 1959 at Olduvai Gorge, Arusha Region, Tanzania (from the Museum's exhibit tag).
On this large canvas, "Various Sites that Provided Fossils of Hominid Evidence for Human Evolution and Development," you can see a picture of "Zinj" in the middle-bottom (right under where it reads "Atlantic Ocean") with a line pointing to the Olduvai Gorge in the North of Tanzania. It was one of the first hominids discovered there.

The display of the Laetoli Footprints with a painting showing an artist's portrayal of the original scene.
The Laetoli Footprints. These few prints were lifted from the site in Laetoli, where a large (~10ft x 7ft) area of prints remain. A new museum (built in the shape of a footprint!) is planned for construction around the site & prints in Laetoli.

One of the posters in the exhibits reads:

How were the footprints made?
1. 3.6 million years ago, a series of seven eruptions from a nearby volcano at Lemagarut covered the ground with a layer of fine ash.
2. Then a light rain fell on the ash, turning it into something like wet cement. Birds and other animals walking through the area left their tracks in the muddy ash.
3. Three hominids walking upright, trekked across the ash, leaving their footprints behind.
4. Ash from a subsequent volcanic eruption fell covered the area, sealing and burying the animal tracks and hominid prints.
5. After millions of years of erosion, the prints were exposed again.

Who made the footprints?
The Laetoli footprints were made by three early hominids classified as Australopithecus Afarensis. One of the individuals walked in the tracks of another, creating overlapping footprints. The three individuals are often portrayed as two adults and a juvenile, but there is no way to determine their sex or age.

A "family tree" of sorts, in the National Musuem, with replicas of the various hominid skulls, showing their relationship to each other, modern humans, and other primates. The left branch would include all types of monkeys, including chimps and gorillas, ending with a modern gorilla skull at the top. The branch on the right is the main point of the display, showing branches of early hominids, ending with "modern man" at the top.

On the fifth colored stripe from the bottom (~3.5 mya, brown) on a stumpy branch extending to the right, you find Australopithecus Afarensis, of the Laetoli footprints. Click here to read more about Australopithecus afarensis.

On the sixth colored stripe from the top (~1.5 mya, blue) on the left-most branch of the larger hominid right branch, you find "Zinj" Australopithecus Boisei (Zinjantropus). Click here to read more about Australopithecus boisei.

Other species on the chart at Dar's National Museum include:
Schelanthropus tchadensis (~7.o mya)
Australopithecus anamensis (4.1-3.5mya)
Australopithecus afarensis Laetoli footprints (3.5-2.9mya)
Australopithecus africanus (3.0-2.5 mya)
Australopithecus aethiopicus (2.5 mya)
Australopithecus boisei "Zinj" (2.3-1.2mya)
Australopithecus robustus (2.0-1.0 mya)
Homo habilis (2.3-1.4mya) & rudolfensis (1.9 mya)
Homo erectus & ergaster (1.9mya-400,000ya)
Homo heidelbergensis (500,000ya)
Homo neanderthalensis (250,000-45,000 ya)
Homo sapiens (200,000ya-present)

In my effort to link to more info, I came upon an interesting website, Archaeology.com, which seems to provide a thorough history of archaeology, anthropalentology, and how fossil evidence fits into current theories of human evolution. It also has some helpful visual representations and charts.

Some of you may be wondering how these fossil discoveries from Africa & their national display relate to current theological teachings on creation and evolution in Africa. Though I haven't run into this much yet, I did see an interesting clue in one of the lessons in the Preaching curriculum (which we are conducting at Kamfinsa Prison).

In the very first lesson on Genesis chapter 1, which is entitled "God created the whole world and it was good," it says in discussion of the second and third days of creation:

...Think about the first days that Genesis talks about. Maybe, they were like our days and nights or perhaps they were thousands of years long. We do not know; only God knows. We know that when God had finished making the world, a day was just like a day we know.

...The people who study plants tell us that those first trees and plants were very different from the trees and plants which we know. They say it was much hotter then. So different sorts of plants grew. But the Bible tells us that God gave the tree and plants fruits and seeds of their own...

--E30 Studies in the Bible: Preaching, TEEZ Basic Course, pg 4.

What the TEEZ Preaching course does here is leave room for Christians to both take the Bible seriously, and believe in the truth of Biblical Creation story, while at the same time taking seriously scientific research and theories of evolution. I like how it emphasizes that we don't know. As a publication for a widely ecumenical group of churches in Zambia, it doesn't presume to teach one rigid interpretation, but rather leaves room, not only for varying denominational teachings, but also for people to critically think through the issue and arrive at their own conclusions, with the guidance of the Spirit.

Some more pics from around the Museum grounds:

Sacred Fig tree

Molly at the base of the Sacred Fig

Giant Clam shell--larger than a car tire.
We would later see some of these when snorkeling off of Zanzibar, but not nearly this big!