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  • WHERE I WORK

Home-field advantage: how local research leads to new discoveries

By studying caves near his home in Johannesburg, South Africa, geologist Tebogo Makhubela ventures into places people have never been before.
By
  1. Nikki Forrester

    1. Nikki Forrester is a science journalist based in Davis, West Virginia.

Tebogo Makhubela wearing overalls and a hard hat with a torch sitting in a dark limestone cave surrounded by large rocks

Tebogo Makhubela is a geologist and lecturer at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Credit: Marco Longari/AFP/Getty

“The Cradle of Humankind is a complex system of limestone caves that has the world’s highest concentration of ancient human fossils. It’s located about 50 kilometres northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa. When I started working there as a PhD student ten years ago, I never thought that I would be the person making discoveries. I always saw myself as a support person who helped the palaeontologists and archaeologists.

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Nature 648, 492 (2025)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-03980-y

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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