Global Health How a Black fossil digger became a superstar in the very white world of paleontology February 4, 20267:30 AM ET Ari Daniel Lazarus Kgasi entered the orbit of paleontology on a whim. After high school, he needed to support his family. He worked a couple of odd jobs before he was hired as a fossil digger. It would forever change his life. Tommy Trenchard for NPR hide caption toggle caption Tommy Trenchard for NPR Lazarus Kgasi walks with ease across a gently rolling landscape about an hour's drive outside of Pretoria, South Africa. A few trees are sprinkled here and there but it's mostly grass. Kgasi, a tall man with a big smile, knows the place well. "We are going to see a fossil site in the Cradle of Humankind," he says, referring to the UNESCO World Heritage site that has produced a stunning trove of early hominid fossils, helping prove that the African continent was indeed the birthplace of humanity. "This is where the story started," says Kgasi, age 52. "Every fossil here helps us to reconstruct the past to tell the story of where do we come from." When he arrives at a sunken pit of uneven stones and dirt that was once a cave, Kgasi says, "I hear voices of our human ancestors." Some of those ancestors left Africa to explore Europe. But others remained. "I'm the descendant of those that stayed in Africa," he reflects. "And hence my skin color. It's a bit darker to cater for the harsh African sun." That darker skin color meant that Kgasi might have never ended
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