New light shed on Homo naledi
Early humans less primitive and not as old as expected
USA TODAY
Homo sapiens — that’s us and our direct ancestors, and long thought to be pretty much the only show in town for hundreds of thousands of years — had a rival cousin as recently as 236,000 years ago, according to South African scientists.
The species, Homo naledi, was discovered in caves near Johannesburg in 2013, and the researchers have now announced that some of the bones are less than a quarter of a million years old, which would mean that the primitive humans — who had much smaller brains than Homo sapiens — were running around in Africa at the same time as our direct forebears.
And not only that, but Homo naledi also appear to have engaged in the relatively advanced practice of burying their dead.
In three studies published in the journal eLife on Tuesday, the team, led by professor Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, said it had also discovered a second cave in South Africa’s Rising Star cave system containing remains of other Homo naledi, which included one of the most complete skeletons of the species ever found as well as the bones of a child.
“This is a humbling discovery for science,” said Berger, a paleoanthropologist. “It’s reminding us that the fossil record can hide things … we can never assume that what we have tells the whole story.”
The study also concluded that the discovery of the second chamber reinforced the team’s belief that Homo naledi buried the bodies of the deceased in their communities, considered to be a sophisticated custom.
In a statement, John Hawks, another researcher on the studies, said that the discovery of the second set of remains “adds weight to the hypothesis that Homo naledi was using dark, remote places to cache its dead. What are the odds of a second, almost identical occurrence happening by chance?”
Hawks said the team believes members of the species purposefully placed their dead in the chamber, a behavior that would indicate raised intelligence and a developed culture.