“The Dawn of Humanity” in the Palaeontological museum Dimitar Kovachev, Asenovgrad, a branch of the National Museum of Natural History, Sofia

On October 30th, 2024, at 17:00, the temporary exhibit “The Dawn of Humanity” was unveiled in the foyer of the Palaeontological museum Dimitar Kovachev, an Asenovgrad branch of the National Museum of Natural History at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia. The exhibit was unveiled by the NMNHS Director, Prof. Pavel Stoev. He welcomed the guests and introduced the author of the concept, Prof. Nikolai Spassov, who announced “I am convinced that remarkably interesting discoveries are about to be made on our land. It seems that the Balkans are not only a cradle of human civilisation, but of humanity as a whole. And it is likely the first steps of upright humans were taken right here.”

An official guest at the event was Asenovgrad’s Deputy Mayor, Engineer Petar Petrov, who offered greetings from the municipality: “It is not every day that we have the opportunity to host renowned and distinguished scientists. I would like to thank you on behalf of the municipality’s Mayor, Dr Hristo Grudev, myself, and the citizens of Asenovgrad for organising this exhibit right here, in the Palaeontological Museum of Asenovgrad. I hope we will have many more occasions for future meetings and joint undertakings.”

At the new temporary exhibit in the Palaeontological museum Dimitar Kovachev, an Asenovgrad branch of NMNHS, you can see an exact copy of the original skeleton of the famous Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis), kept in the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa with the number AL 228-1. It was donated to the National Museum of Natural History, Sofia by Prof Denis Geraads from the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, who has long participated in palaeontological digs organised by NMNHS in Bulgaria.

The exhibit also showcases casts of fossils of the hominine Graecopithecus found in the Bulgarian paleontological locality Azmaka, near Chirpan, which, together with the first findings of this genus near Athens, led to the formation of the hypothesis that the first human ancestors with which the human evolutionary line begins lived on the Balkans. According to recent studies on the Greek and Bulgarian Graecopithecus remains, whose age is set at around 7.2 million years, in an evolutionary sense the genus is closer to humans than to great apes, and today a number of scientists accept the thesis that this is the first human ancestor. Its rare remains are displayed together with casts of the hominid Ouranopithecus from Northern Greece (9 Ma) and the Sahelanthropus from Chad (7 Ma). The forelimb of the most ancient European monkey, the Mesopithecus, which lived together with the Graecopithecus in the Azmaka region, is displayed for comparison.

You can find out more about the event in the photo album on Facebook.