ADDIS ABABA – The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has registered Ethiopia’s MelkaKunture and Balchit, archaeological and paleontological sites on its world heritage list.
UNESCO announced that the MelkaKunture and Balchit archaeological and paleontological sites in the Highland Area of Ethiopia have been inscribed on the World Heritage list during the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee, which is taking place in India, from July 21-31, 2024.
The registration of these new sites has enabled Ethiopia to have 12 World Heritage Sites thereby becoming the firstAfrican nationwith the largest number of such sites in the continent, the organization said.
Located in the Upper Awash Valley in Ethiopia, the serial property is a cluster of prehistoric sites that preserve archaeological and paleontological records – including footprints – that testify to the area’s occupation by the hominin groups from two million years ago, it noted.
In her message to the Committee, Tourism Minister Nasise Chali expressed that the registration of the sites as world heritage means a lot as it happens at a time Ethiopians are commemorating the 50th year of the discovery of Lucy – a 3.2 million-year old fossil skeleton of a human ancestor.
She said the addition of the sites to the world heritage list proves the fact that Ethiopia is land of origins.
The minister also pledged that her government would play its role to protect the heritage.
MelkaKunture and Balchit archaeological and paleontological sites are located on the riverside of Awash, 50km away from Addis Ababa.
The sites, situated about 2,000 to 2,200 meters above sea level, yielded Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis and archaic Homo sapiens fossils, documented in well-dated strata in association with various tools made from volcanic rocks.
The cultural sequence includes four consecutive phases of the Oldowan, Acheulean, Middle Stone Age and Late Stone Age techno-complexes. Fragments of palaeo-landscapes, preserved buried under volcanic and sedimentary deposits with fossil fauna and flora, allow reconstruction of the high-mountain ecosystem of the Ethiopian Highlands during the Pleistocene. Conclusions can thus be drawn on the adaptation of hominin groups to the challenges and climatic conditions of high altitudes, according to UNESCO.
BY STAFF REPORTER
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SATURDAY 27 JULY 2024
