Two Men of Broken Hill

In this series of articles I have been telling you about the work my father and I have done in Zambia with the National Police Aid Convoys. Now I would like to do something a little different, and tell you how it all started; with two men born two hundred thousand years apart. Both were born at Broken Hill in Zambia, and both spent their formative years there, when neither of them wore shoes. One left with a promise to return, the other stayed there for all of his days.

One man is my father, the other could be the father of us all.

The Broken Hill Skull, also known as the Kabwe Cranium, was found in a zinc mine in 1921. It belonged to an adult male, and he belonged to an early species of human called Homo rhodesiensis. Many believe that H. rhodesiensis evolved into modern man. For all his significance to us now, Broken Hill man would have lived simply; eating meat that he hunted with his spear, using tools that he knapped from flint, socialising with his extended family unit and speaking with them using a rudimentary language. He would have known other men who passed through the area on their way into the rest of the world, but he stayed where he was, happy in his home with all that he could need.

Sadly there were many dangers in the life of Broken Hill man. His species spread all over the world, and the remains of another H. rhodesiensis man have been found in Boxgrove Quarry, West Sussex. They were gnawed on by a large carnivore. At this time humans were not the top predator, and while Boxgrove Quarry man was bested by a wolf or a bear, Broken Hill man would have had to deal with ancestral lions, hyenas, and wild dogs, not to mention the dangers of hippos, elephants, mosquitoes and tsetse flies. Disease would have been a constant presence and it is likely that he lost more than one family member before he himself died. His skull shows that ten of his top teeth had cavities in them, and pitting in the bone suggests that he suffered a great infection before he died, either from the infection itself or from starving to death because it was too painful to eat.

Two hundred thousand years later the other man from Broken Hill is returning to the land of his birth, now able to heal the hurt that tooth decay can cause. He is too late for Broken Hill man, but he can help hundreds of others by providing a facility to which anyone may come for help. My father is in the process of furnishing a dental clinic in Lusaka to give something back to the country which gave him so much. 

First published in Southwell Life, June 2015.

July's edition of Southwell Life is published tomorrow. Be sure to take a look at all of its fine articles!