Makapansgat, Nature reserve in Mogalakwena, South Africa.

Makapansgat is a valley of limestone caves northeast of Mokopane in Limpopo, part of the Cradle of Humankind. Its limeworks, mined for lime from about 1918, hold Australopithecus africanus fossils dated by palaeomagnetism to between 2.85 and 2.58 million years ago. Nearby lie the Cave of Hearths, the Historic Cave and Ficus Cave, whose entrance is curtained by fig-tree roots.

The valley was archaeologically investigated in the 1940s and revealed fossils of Australopithecus africanus millions of years old. These discoveries made the site crucial for understanding human evolution and early hominid development.

The Makapansgat pebble, a stone naturally shaped like a human face, was reportedly carried into the cave about three million years ago; Raymond Dart treated it as evidence of early symbolic thinking. The valley's Iron Age terraces and finds such as potsherds, grindstones and iron-smelting slag and tuyere fragments show later settlement, and the cave is still called after Chief Makapan (Mokopane).

The valley lies northeast of Mokopane in Limpopo, reached from the town by road; the cave sites sit in the Makapansgat and Zwartkrans valleys. The Historic Cave was proclaimed a National Monument in 1936, and the whole Makapan Valley is a South African Heritage Site within the Cradle of Humankind. Excavations at the Cave of Hearths were run by the University of Liverpool between 1996 and 2001, so some deposits may be fenced or closed.

The Makapansgat pebble is a naturally shaped stone resembling a human face, thought to have been carried into the cave by an Australopithecus about 3 million years ago. Raymond Dart, who began systematic investigation in 1947, saw it as an early sign of symbolic thinking. After analysing 7,159 fossil bones, he concluded the hominids used tools of bone, teeth and horn, which he named the Osteodontokeratic Culture.