Like Alice, down a hole to a new world
FOR Lindsay Hunter, a palaeontologist from St Louis, Missouri, the narrow chute in the Rising Star cave was going to make or break her success on the expedition.
When she lowered herself into the tiny space for the first time, her only concern was “What if I have wasted everyone’s time?”
She was, after all, just one of a team of six chosen from hundreds who responded to an advert on Facebook — placed by the head of the research project, Lee Berger — that stipulated a unique set of criteria.
Not only was the appropriate scientific expertise required, but also an aptitude for caving, and a body that could fit into a tiny space.
“The first time in the chute was like the gauntlet: if you don’t fit, you won’t get to work with the fossils.
“Even though I had scrupulously measured myself, that was my biggest concern.”
Her fears were soon allayed, however, and she found herself pressed between cold masses of rock.
“It is so narrow that you have to keep your head up, so you can’t actually see what is below you.
“You wiggle and fall a bit, and wiggle and fall some more, and then pop into a more open area about 4m from the ground.”
After this comes a sloped landing and an area “that you have to move through vertically, but in a horizontal fashion”.
She said it “couldn’t have been done for better dramatic effect because you suddenly catch sight of the chamber”.
In the early days of the expedition, the floors “were literally covered with remains and it was beyond exciting”. As team members sorted carefully through them, even more fossils were churned up, until eventually they had collected 1 550 specimens — the biggest fossil find on African soil to date.