SCI Mysterious species buried their dead and carved symbols 100,000 years before humans

Melodi

Disaster Cat
Wow, let's see: intentional burial of the dead, fire, symbolic rock markings, infants to old folks, sounds pretty human to me...Melodi (and boy will this set the cat among the academic pigeons).

Best seen at the link with multiple images - one included here

World
Audio
Live TV

Space and Science
Mysterious species buried their dead and carved symbols 100,000 years before humans
By Ashley Strickland, CNN
Updated 4:00 PM EDT, Mon June 5, 2023
MM8345_141105_04788.jpg Rising Star Cave, South Africa, 2014. National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Lee Berger's daughter, Megan, and underground exploration team member Rick Hunter navigate the narrow chutes leading to the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star cave in South Africa where fossil elements belonging to H. naledi, a new species of human relative, were discovered. The find was announced by the University of the Witwatersrand, the National Geographic Society and the South African National Research Foundation and published in the journal eLife. Photo by Robert Clark, National Geographic

National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Dr. Lee Berger's daughter, Megan (top), and underground exploration team member Rick Hunter navigate the narrow chutes leading to the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star cave in South Africa.
Robert Clark/National Geographic
Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.

Researchers have uncovered evidence that members of a mysterious archaic human species buried their dead and carved symbols on cave walls long before the earliest evidence of burials by modern humans.

The brains belonging to the extinct species, known as Homo naledi, were around one-third the size of a modern human brain.

The revelations could change the understanding of human evolution, because until now such behaviors only have been associated with larger-brained Homo sapiens and Neanderthals.

The findings are detailed in three studies that have been accepted for publication in the journal eLife, and preprints of the papers are available on BioRxiv.

MM8345_141103_01218.jpg Johannesburg, South Africa, 2014. The team lays out fossils of H. naledi at the University of the Witwatersrand's Evolutionary Studies Institute. The new species of human relative was discovered by a team led by National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand deep inside a cave located outside Johannesburg, South Africa. The find was announced by the University of the Witwatersrand, the National Geographic Society and the South African National Research Foundation and published in the journal eLife.


The study team lays out fossils of Homo naledi at the University of the Witwatersrand's Evolutionary Studies Institute in Johannesburg.
Robert Clark/National Geographic

Fossils belonging to Homo naledi were first discovered in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa during excavations in 2013. The cave system is part of South Africa’s Cradle of Humankind, a UNESCO World Heritage Site encompassing an area where scientists have found fossils of multiple ancient human ancestor species — remains that are helping to unlock the story of human evolution.

Paleoanthropologist and National Geographic Explorer in Residence Dr. Lee Berger and his team of “underground astronauts” have continued their work in the extensive, dangerous caves to better understand the extinct hominins, or ancient human ancestors.

Now, the research team has discovered the remains of Homo naledi adults and children that were laid to rest in the fetal position within cave depressions and covered with soil. The burials are older than any known Homo sapiens burials by at least 100,000 years.
230605132420-05-homo-naledi-rising-star-cave-head.jpg

A reconstruction of Homo naledi's head by paleoartist John Gurche, who spent some 700 hours recreating the head from bone scans. The find was announced by the University of the Witwatersrand, the National Geographic Society and the South African National Research Foundation and published in the journal eLife.
Photo by Mark Thiessen/National Geographic

During the work to identify the cave burials, the scientists also found a number of symbols engraved on the cave walls, which are estimated to be between 241,000 and 335,000 years old, but they want to continue their testing for more precise dating.

The symbols include deeply carved hashtag-like cross-hatchings and other geometric shapes. Similar symbols found in other caves were carved by early Homo sapiens 80,000 years ago and Neanderthals 60,000 years ago and were thought to have been used as a way to record and share information.

“These recent findings suggest intentional burials, the use of symbols, and meaning-making activities by Homo naledi. It seems an inevitable conclusion that in combination they indicate that this small-brained species of ancient human relatives was performing complex practices related to death,” said Berger, lead author on two of the studies and coauthor on the third, in a statement. “That would mean not only are humans not unique in the development of symbolic practices, but may not have even invented such behaviors.”

Crawling through caves
Exploring the labyrinth-like Rising Star cave system and its chambers isn’t for the faint of heart.

The team has mapped over 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) of the caves so far, which have a vertical depth of 328 feet (100 meters) and expand for more than 656 feet (200 meters) in length, said the studies’ lead geologist Dr. Tebogo Makhubela, senior lecturer of geology at the University of Johannesburg.

The cave system includes deadly steep drops and tiny passageways like Superman’s Crawl, a tunnel measuring 131 feet (40 meters) long and 9.8 inches (25 centimeters) across, requiring the researchers to belly crawl their way through, said Dr. Keneiloe Molopyane, National Geographic Explorer and lead excavator of Dragon’s Back Expedition (named for one of the cave’s features).

Berger said he had to lose 55 pounds (25 kilograms) to enter the cave’s precarious chambers in 2022.

“It was the most awful and wonderful experience in my life,” Berger said. “I almost died coming out of there, but it was obviously worth it to make some of these discoveries. But, I think an important part of that, though, is that the journey would not be nearly as difficult, I think, for Homo naledi.”

Homo naledi shared some similarities with humans, like walking upright and manipulating objects by hand, but members of the species had smaller heads, a shorter stature, and were thinner and more powerfully built, Berger said.

Homo naledi’s shoulders — which were oriented for better climbing — and teeth shared similarities with earlier hominins like Australopithecus, said Dr. John Hawks, professor of anthropology and paleoanthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.


Figure 1: Image of two burial features discovered in the Dinaledi Chamber, Rising Star Cave South Africa. A. Square area outlines position of burials relative to 2013 -- 2016 excavations. B. Photograph of main burial feature (Feature 1) containing the single body of an adult specimen of Homo naledi. Feature 2 shows the edge of a burial containing at least one juvenile body. C and D illustrate the bones as positioned within the graves. Images from Berger et al., 2023.

Courtesy Lee Berger
The researchers have found many Homo naledi fossils throughout the caves, including the remains of very young infants and aged adults, to help them understand Naledi as a population, Hawks said. And as the team continued deeper into the caves, it became clear that Homo naledi was very familiar with and using broad parts of the cave system.

When Berger and his team announced the discovery of Homo naledi in 2015, they suggested it was possible that the species deliberately disposed of their dead in the cave.

But the idea of a small-brained hominin doing so was considered to be a very controversial hypothesis.

In 2018, the team began to find evidence that supported the idea that Homo naledi intentionally buried their dead. The scientists found ovals dug into cave surfaces resembling holes, and the remains of bodies placed inside in curled positions.

Figure 2: The Hill Antechamber feature containing the remains of at least four Homo naledi children. One child (main skeleton illustrated on right in the CT reconstruction) is approximately 13 years old in human terms. There is a very young child (not illustrated and visible only on Synchrotron scans) also in the feature and the faces of two other very young children are also found in the grave. Images from Berger et al., 2023.

The cave's Hill Antechamber (left) feature contains the remains of at least four Homo naledi children. One child (right) depicted through a computerized tomography, or CT, reconstruction, was approximately 13 years old at the time of death.
Courtesy Lee Berger

Other burial sites were dug horizontally into slopes, with bodies placed inside, showing that the remains didn’t end up there by other, nondeliberate means, Berger said.


“It’s not a body that died in a depression or hole. It was a whole body that was covered in dirt and then decayed within the grave itself, in part demonstrating that it was buried at the time as a whole flesh entity, but not by some dramatic collapse or being washed in,” Berger said. “We feel that they’ve met the litmus test of human burials or archaic human burials and the most ancient human burials, and therefore describe them as graves or burials by the nonhuman species, Homo naledi.”

And then, the team found an artifact within a burial and discovered carvings on the wall.


Carvings on the wall
Within one of the graves is a tool-shaped rock, buried next to the hand of a Homo naledi adult. Within a passage above the burials, in an antechamber, is a wall covered with rock engravings.

The deeply carved geometric shapes appear on dolomite rock walls that reach 4.5 to 4.7 on Mohs Hardness Scale, which helps researchers assess the scratch resistance of minerals. Dolomite is halfway to a diamond (at the top of the scale) in terms of hardness, which means it would have taken an extreme amount of time and effort to carve into the walls, Berger said.

Discovered on July 28th, 2022. This picture shows an image of Panel B in the Hill Antechamber exhibiting numerous engravings and etchings on the ancient dolomitic wall. The panel shows repeated etchings likely done over a considerable period. The etchings include geometric figures such as squares, ladders, triangles, crosses, and X's. Image from Berger et al. (2023b).
A wall of the Hill Antechamber showcases numerous engravings and etchings. The panel shows repeated etchings of squares, ladders, triangles, crosses and X's.
Courtesy Lee Berger
The team believes that Homo naledi, and not Homo sapiens, are responsible for the carvings because there is no evidence that humans have ever been inside the caves.

Homo naledi was able to see what they were doing inside the caves by using fire. There is evidence spread throughout the caves, including soot, charcoal and burnt bone, to show that they were actively setting fires, Berger said.


Both the burials and the symbols imply that Homo naledi was capable of engaging in meaningful behaviors, said Agustín Fuentes, National Geographic Explorer, on-site biocultural specialist and lead author of the third study.

The "tool shaped rock" described in Berger et al. (2023a) positioned in, or near the hand of a young teenage Homo naledi child buried in the Hill Antechambe
r. The arrows point to possible serrations and lines which are possible evidence of modification or use of wear on the edge of the rock. The rock is of an unknown material and remains encased in a plaster jacket while being studied by synchrotron imaging at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France. Images from Berger et al., 2023.
The "tool shaped rock" was likely buried near or clutched in the hand of a young teenage Homo naledi child buried in the Hill Antechamber. The arrows point to possible serrations and lines that are possible evidence of modification or use of wear on the edge of the rock.
Courtesy Lee Berger
The meaning of the symbols is unclear, and researchers can’t say whether they were used as a type of language or communication within the species.

“What we can say is that these are intentionally made geometric designs that had meaning for naledi,” Fuentes said. “That means they spent a lot of time and effort and risked their lives to engrave these things in these places where they’re burying bodies.”

The naledi findings suggest that larger brains can’t be the only connection with complex behavior that researchers once assumed related only to humans, Fuentes said.

“The challenge here, then, is that we now know that Homo naledi, in addition to Homo sapiens and Neanderthals and Denisovans and a few others, were engaging in the kind of behavior that we, even just a few decades ago, thought was unique to us,” he said. “That means we need to rethink the timing of fire use, of meaning-making and of the burial of the dead in hominin history.”


A close up of the base of the Panel A crosshatch engraving in the passage between the Hill Antechamber burial chamber and the Dinaledi Burial Chamber described in Berger et al (2023a). The roughly horizontal wavy lines at the bottom of the image which are crossed by the engravings is a fossil algal stromatolite found in the native dolomitic rock and clearly illustrate the non-natural origin of the more prominent etchings as they cross the fossil. Image from Berger et al., 2023.
Some of the engravings reveal signs of stray lines and even erasure, similar to sand being used to "erase" markings before another carving was completed on top.
Courtesy Lee Berger
Chris Stringer, research leader in human origins at London’s Natural History Museum, said that although he was previously skeptical of claims of behavioral complexity in Homo naledi and its ape-size brain, “the considerable evidence presented now by Berger and colleagues for possible burials and wall engravings cannot be easily dismissed.” Stringer was not involved in the research.

“I would certainly like to see attempts at dating the evidence for the engravings and for the fire, but if these huge claims turn out to be well-founded, they have profound implications for our reconstructions of human evolution,” Stringer said.

The findings raise many questions, including whether the behaviors were already present in an ancient common ancestor that lived much earlier than Homo naledi or humans, and why we have such big brains “if human-like behavioural complexity can be achieved with a brain less than half that size,” Stringer said.


Next steps
Berger and his colleagues’ work on the discovery of Homo naledi and how it potentially changes the human family tree will be shared in Netflix’s “Unknown: Cave of Bones” on July 17 and in a book coauthored by Berger and Hawks called “Cave of Bones: A True Story of Discovery, Adventure, and Human Origins,” available August 8.

The research team is continuing its work to better understand Homo naledi, including how old the species is, whether it existed closer in time to humans than previously thought, and if there is any DNA preserved in the bones found in the cave system.


© 2023 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved.
CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.
 

tanstaafl

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Hmmm, it sounds like a very isolated population group with no obvious genetic relation to any other pre-humans ... See, this is what happens when you leave your pets behind while on vacation. Without supervision they breed like rabbits. Damn aliens should have been more careful about rounding up their stray lower caste helpmates when they left our planet!
 

Melodi

Disaster Cat
Hmmm, it sounds like a very isolated population group with no obvious genetic relation to any other pre-humans ... See, this is what happens when you leave your pets behind while on vacation. Without supervision they breed like rabbits. Damn aliens should have been more careful about rounding up their stray lower caste helpmates when they left our planet!
They don't have the DNA yet, but that will happen soon. With that many skeletons, they are likely to get some. Also, they have been undisturbed for 100,000 years, making their contamination less likely. The things they are going back and testing in museums often have that issue because humans handled them in the 19th and 20th centuries. Now archeologists always try to take them with gloves, even during excavations. They should also be able to date the fire and charcoal. I thought the further back you go, the less reliable that is.

To me, the use of fire is one of the most unique parts of this. Elephants will carry off their dead, try to die in a "graveyard," and come back once a year to engage in what looks like mourning rituals (and probably are). So that may not be unique to "human people" (if we find once we decode their language, they are sapient but with trunks instead of hands).

But Fire, fire takes things to a whole new level! There are theories that fire helps the human brain's growth because meat and vegetables can be cooked, broken down, and more easily digested. And we know from Bonobo Kanzi's learning to make fires and cook that some great apes also enjoy cooked food when it is an option. Cooking would aid nutrition and absorption of calories more easily and quickly.
 

WalknTrot

Veteran Member
350,000 years isn't that long over the course of our evolution. Not really surprised, as I always doubted that the human intellect and behaviors only evolved over a few thousand. It was a long slog through many challenges and generations to get here. Hahaha...it remains to be seen if we aren't actually DE-volving at this point in our history. We've removed challenges and natural selection from too large a % of the breeding population these days.

Sharp rocks and "hammer" rocks are still darned handy. I've caught myself grabbing one for a quick task unconsciously. Effortless and free. Fire was natural to the environment and seasons. Wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out it's benefits and use/recreate/harness it. If nothing else, these folks were keen observers and masters of their environment. Modern humans don't realize how much we have all have lost in that regard.

Yup...looking forward to the DNA info. This cave-place should be a great environment to preserve it.
 
Last edited:

FMJ

Technical Senior
Wow, let's see: intentional burial of the dead, fire, symbolic rock markings, infants to old folks, sounds pretty human to me...Melodi (and boy will this set the cat among the academic pigeons).

Best seen at the link with multiple images - one included here

World
Audio
Live TV

Space and Science
Mysterious species buried their dead and carved symbols 100,000 years before humans
By Ashley Strickland, CNN
Updated 4:00 PM EDT, Mon June 5, 2023
MM8345_141105_04788.jpg Rising Star Cave, South Africa, 2014. National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Lee Berger's daughter, Megan, and underground exploration team member Rick Hunter navigate the narrow chutes leading to the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star cave in South Africa where fossil elements belonging to H. naledi, a new species of human relative, were discovered. The find was announced by the University of the Witwatersrand, the National Geographic Society and the South African National Research Foundation and published in the journal eLife. Photo by Robert Clark, National Geographic

National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Dr. Lee Berger's daughter, Megan (top), and underground exploration team member Rick Hunter navigate the narrow chutes leading to the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star cave in South Africa.
Robert Clark/National Geographic
Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.

Researchers have uncovered evidence that members of a mysterious archaic human species buried their dead and carved symbols on cave walls long before the earliest evidence of burials by modern humans.

The brains belonging to the extinct species, known as Homo naledi, were around one-third the size of a modern human brain.

The revelations could change the understanding of human evolution, because until now such behaviors only have been associated with larger-brained Homo sapiens and Neanderthals.

The findings are detailed in three studies that have been accepted for publication in the journal eLife, and preprints of the papers are available on BioRxiv.

MM8345_141103_01218.jpg Johannesburg, South Africa, 2014. The team lays out fossils of H. naledi at the University of the Witwatersrand's Evolutionary Studies Institute. The new species of human relative was discovered by a team led by National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand deep inside a cave located outside Johannesburg, South Africa. The find was announced by the University of the Witwatersrand, the National Geographic Society and the South African National Research Foundation and published in the journal eLife.


The study team lays out fossils of Homo naledi at the University of the Witwatersrand's Evolutionary Studies Institute in Johannesburg.
Robert Clark/National Geographic

Fossils belonging to Homo naledi were first discovered in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa during excavations in 2013. The cave system is part of South Africa’s Cradle of Humankind, a UNESCO World Heritage Site encompassing an area where scientists have found fossils of multiple ancient human ancestor species — remains that are helping to unlock the story of human evolution.

Paleoanthropologist and National Geographic Explorer in Residence Dr. Lee Berger and his team of “underground astronauts” have continued their work in the extensive, dangerous caves to better understand the extinct hominins, or ancient human ancestors.

Now, the research team has discovered the remains of Homo naledi adults and children that were laid to rest in the fetal position within cave depressions and covered with soil. The burials are older than any known Homo sapiens burials by at least 100,000 years.
230605132420-05-homo-naledi-rising-star-cave-head.jpg

A reconstruction of Homo naledi's head by paleoartist John Gurche, who spent some 700 hours recreating the head from bone scans. The find was announced by the University of the Witwatersrand, the National Geographic Society and the South African National Research Foundation and published in the journal eLife.
Photo by Mark Thiessen/National Geographic

During the work to identify the cave burials, the scientists also found a number of symbols engraved on the cave walls, which are estimated to be between 241,000 and 335,000 years old, but they want to continue their testing for more precise dating.

The symbols include deeply carved hashtag-like cross-hatchings and other geometric shapes. Similar symbols found in other caves were carved by early Homo sapiens 80,000 years ago and Neanderthals 60,000 years ago and were thought to have been used as a way to record and share information.

“These recent findings suggest intentional burials, the use of symbols, and meaning-making activities by Homo naledi. It seems an inevitable conclusion that in combination they indicate that this small-brained species of ancient human relatives was performing complex practices related to death,” said Berger, lead author on two of the studies and coauthor on the third, in a statement. “That would mean not only are humans not unique in the development of symbolic practices, but may not have even invented such behaviors.”

Crawling through caves
Exploring the labyrinth-like Rising Star cave system and its chambers isn’t for the faint of heart.

The team has mapped over 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) of the caves so far, which have a vertical depth of 328 feet (100 meters) and expand for more than 656 feet (200 meters) in length, said the studies’ lead geologist Dr. Tebogo Makhubela, senior lecturer of geology at the University of Johannesburg.

The cave system includes deadly steep drops and tiny passageways like Superman’s Crawl, a tunnel measuring 131 feet (40 meters) long and 9.8 inches (25 centimeters) across, requiring the researchers to belly crawl their way through, said Dr. Keneiloe Molopyane, National Geographic Explorer and lead excavator of Dragon’s Back Expedition (named for one of the cave’s features).

Berger said he had to lose 55 pounds (25 kilograms) to enter the cave’s precarious chambers in 2022.

“It was the most awful and wonderful experience in my life,” Berger said. “I almost died coming out of there, but it was obviously worth it to make some of these discoveries. But, I think an important part of that, though, is that the journey would not be nearly as difficult, I think, for Homo naledi.”

Homo naledi shared some similarities with humans, like walking upright and manipulating objects by hand, but members of the species had smaller heads, a shorter stature, and were thinner and more powerfully built, Berger said.

Homo naledi’s shoulders — which were oriented for better climbing — and teeth shared similarities with earlier hominins like Australopithecus, said Dr. John Hawks, professor of anthropology and paleoanthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.


Figure 1: Image of two burial features discovered in the Dinaledi Chamber, Rising Star Cave South Africa. A. Square area outlines position of burials relative to 2013 -- 2016 excavations. B. Photograph of main burial feature (Feature 1) containing the single body of an adult specimen of Homo naledi. Feature 2 shows the edge of a burial containing at least one juvenile body. C and D illustrate the bones as positioned within the graves. Images from Berger et al., 2023.

Courtesy Lee Berger
The researchers have found many Homo naledi fossils throughout the caves, including the remains of very young infants and aged adults, to help them understand Naledi as a population, Hawks said. And as the team continued deeper into the caves, it became clear that Homo naledi was very familiar with and using broad parts of the cave system.

When Berger and his team announced the discovery of Homo naledi in 2015, they suggested it was possible that the species deliberately disposed of their dead in the cave.

But the idea of a small-brained hominin doing so was considered to be a very controversial hypothesis.

In 2018, the team began to find evidence that supported the idea that Homo naledi intentionally buried their dead. The scientists found ovals dug into cave surfaces resembling holes, and the remains of bodies placed inside in curled positions.

Figure 2: The Hill Antechamber feature containing the remains of at least four Homo naledi children. One child (main skeleton illustrated on right in the CT reconstruction) is approximately 13 years old in human terms. There is a very young child (not illustrated and visible only on Synchrotron scans) also in the feature and the faces of two other very young children are also found in the grave. Images from Berger et al., 2023.

The cave's Hill Antechamber (left) feature contains the remains of at least four Homo naledi children. One child (right) depicted through a computerized tomography, or CT, reconstruction, was approximately 13 years old at the time of death.
Courtesy Lee Berger

Other burial sites were dug horizontally into slopes, with bodies placed inside, showing that the remains didn’t end up there by other, nondeliberate means, Berger said.

“It’s not a body that died in a depression or hole. It was a whole body that was covered in dirt and then decayed within the grave itself, in part demonstrating that it was buried at the time as a whole flesh entity, but not by some dramatic collapse or being washed in,” Berger said. “We feel that they’ve met the litmus test of human burials or archaic human burials and the most ancient human burials, and therefore describe them as graves or burials by the nonhuman species, Homo naledi.”

And then, the team found an artifact within a burial and discovered carvings on the wall.

Carvings on the wall
Within one of the graves is a tool-shaped rock, buried next to the hand of a Homo naledi adult. Within a passage above the burials, in an antechamber, is a wall covered with rock engravings.

The deeply carved geometric shapes appear on dolomite rock walls that reach 4.5 to 4.7 on Mohs Hardness Scale, which helps researchers assess the scratch resistance of minerals. Dolomite is halfway to a diamond (at the top of the scale) in terms of hardness, which means it would have taken an extreme amount of time and effort to carve into the walls, Berger said.

Discovered on July 28th, 2022. This picture shows an image of Panel B in the Hill Antechamber exhibiting numerous engravings and etchings on the ancient dolomitic wall. The panel shows repeated etchings likely done over a considerable period. The etchings include geometric figures such as squares, ladders, triangles, crosses, and X's. Image from Berger et al. (2023b).
A wall of the Hill Antechamber showcases numerous engravings and etchings. The panel shows repeated etchings of squares, ladders, triangles, crosses and X's.
Courtesy Lee Berger
The team believes that Homo naledi, and not Homo sapiens, are responsible for the carvings because there is no evidence that humans have ever been inside the caves.

Homo naledi was able to see what they were doing inside the caves by using fire. There is evidence spread throughout the caves, including soot, charcoal and burnt bone, to show that they were actively setting fires, Berger said.


Both the burials and the symbols imply that Homo naledi was capable of engaging in meaningful behaviors, said Agustín Fuentes, National Geographic Explorer, on-site biocultural specialist and lead author of the third study.

The "tool shaped rock" described in Berger et al. (2023a) positioned in, or near the hand of a young teenage Homo naledi child buried in the Hill Antechamber. The arrows point to possible serrations and lines which are possible evidence of modification or use of wear on the edge of the rock. The rock is of an unknown material and remains encased in a plaster jacket while being studied by synchrotron imaging at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France. Images from Berger et al., 2023.
The "tool shaped rock" was likely buried near or clutched in the hand of a young teenage Homo naledi child buried in the Hill Antechamber. The arrows point to possible serrations and lines that are possible evidence of modification or use of wear on the edge of the rock.
Courtesy Lee Berger
The meaning of the symbols is unclear, and researchers can’t say whether they were used as a type of language or communication within the species.

“What we can say is that these are intentionally made geometric designs that had meaning for naledi,” Fuentes said. “That means they spent a lot of time and effort and risked their lives to engrave these things in these places where they’re burying bodies.”

The naledi findings suggest that larger brains can’t be the only connection with complex behavior that researchers once assumed related only to humans, Fuentes said.

“The challenge here, then, is that we now know that Homo naledi, in addition to Homo sapiens and Neanderthals and Denisovans and a few others, were engaging in the kind of behavior that we, even just a few decades ago, thought was unique to us,” he said. “That means we need to rethink the timing of fire use, of meaning-making and of the burial of the dead in hominin history.”


A close up of the base of the Panel A crosshatch engraving in the passage between the Hill Antechamber burial chamber and the Dinaledi Burial Chamber described in Berger et al (2023a). The roughly horizontal wavy lines at the bottom of the image which are crossed by the engravings is a fossil algal stromatolite found in the native dolomitic rock and clearly illustrate the non-natural origin of the more prominent etchings as they cross the fossil. Image from Berger et al., 2023.
Some of the engravings reveal signs of stray lines and even erasure, similar to sand being used to "erase" markings before another carving was completed on top.
Courtesy Lee Berger
Chris Stringer, research leader in human origins at London’s Natural History Museum, said that although he was previously skeptical of claims of behavioral complexity in Homo naledi and its ape-size brain, “the considerable evidence presented now by Berger and colleagues for possible burials and wall engravings cannot be easily dismissed.” Stringer was not involved in the research.

“I would certainly like to see attempts at dating the evidence for the engravings and for the fire, but if these huge claims turn out to be well-founded, they have profound implications for our reconstructions of human evolution,” Stringer said.

The findings raise many questions, including whether the behaviors were already present in an ancient common ancestor that lived much earlier than Homo naledi or humans, and why we have such big brains “if human-like behavioural complexity can be achieved with a brain less than half that size,” Stringer said.


Next steps
Berger and his colleagues’ work on the discovery of Homo naledi and how it potentially changes the human family tree will be shared in Netflix’s “Unknown: Cave of Bones” on July 17 and in a book coauthored by Berger and Hawks called “Cave of Bones: A True Story of Discovery, Adventure, and Human Origins,” available August 8.

The research team is continuing its work to better understand Homo naledi, including how old the species is, whether it existed closer in time to humans than previously thought, and if there is any DNA preserved in the bones found in the cave system.


© 2023 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved.
CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.
This jumped out at me:

“Within one of the graves is a tool-shaped rock, buried next to the hand of a Homo naledi adult. Within a passage above the burials, in an antechamber, is a wall covered with rock engravings.”

And then:

“The rock is of an unknown material and remains encased in a plaster jacket while being studied by synchrotron imaging at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France. Images from Berger et al., 2023.”
 

amazon

Veteran Member
This is interesting, but doesn't change my worldview. (I'm sure that's not why Melodi posted it.) I think its pretty obvious there were other epochs of time. Were they created "in the likeness and image of G-d?" We're not told, but I doubt it. Could lesser created beings, even Lucifer, have created some race of beings? Maybe. It's certainly interesting to speculate about, though I take scientists estimates as to time with a grain of salt. So much in the world we don't understand yet.

Thanks for posting this.
 

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
This jumped out at me:

“The rock is of an unknown material and remains encased in a plaster jacket while being studied by synchrotron imaging at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France. Images from Berger et al., 2023.”

yeah, why was the rock wrapped in plaster? How did they figure. out how to make plaster?
 

Phelan

Contributing Member
I had a lecture in university by one of the research assistants regarding that dig. I find it odd that no one as of yet has looked into the possibility that the remains there were from a mass killing of some kind. The cave is to far back and difficult to reach for me to believe that the bodies in there were placed there post mortem. especially if you know that they found no soot on the ceilings from the entrance to the cave, moving bodies in the dark through caverns isn't easy work.

I'm still rather facinated by the whole thing.
 

WalknTrot

Veteran Member
I had a lecture in university by one of the research assistants regarding that dig. I find it odd that no one as of yet has looked into the possibility that the remains there were from a mass killing of some kind. The cave is to far back and difficult to reach for me to believe that the bodies in there were placed there post mortem. especially if you know that they found no soot on the ceilings from the entrance to the cave, moving bodies in the dark through caverns isn't easy work.

I'm still rather facinated by the whole thing.
This article said that they did use torches or some sort of fire for light, and from what I gather, they were quite small people.
 

Publius

TB Fanatic
There is a YouTube Chanel "History with Kayleigh" and about a year ago she was posting about this' these people if you want to call them that do not fit in the time line where they are found.
Kayleigh has a new video posted on YouTube about this and it's an interview with the man that found this cave.
 
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