In 2015, the Scientists reported a startling discovery in a South African cave: More than 1,500 fossils of a never-before-seen ancient hominid species.
The creatures, called Homo naledi, were short in stature, with long arms, curved fingers, and a brain one-third the size of a modern human. They lived when the first humans roamed Africa.
Now, After years of analyzing the cave, the same team of scientists says that Homo naledi—despite their tiny brains—buried their dead in tombs. He lit fires to light his way through the cave and marked the graves with carvings on the walls.
Lee Berger, a paleoanthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and leader of the team, said the discovery was profound. It suggests that large brains are not essential for sophisticated kinds of thinking, he said, such as making symbols, cooperating on expeditions, or recognizing death.
However, several experts said the evidence did not yet support these extraordinary conclusions. The skeletons may have simply been left on the cave floor. And the charcoal and engravings left behind by modern humans who were in the cave much later.
“It seems that the narrative is more important than the facts,” said Maxime Aubert, an archaeologist at Griffith University in Australia.
The remains were discovered in 2013 by two South African cavers exploring Rising Star Cave. In all, researchers have found bones of at least 27 individuals. Berger and his colleagues found it unlikely that they had simply been washed away into the deep corners of the cave.
In their 2015 report, the researchers suggested that Homo naledi deliberately brought the bodies there, but left them on the cave floor instead of burying them. That was still a provocative claim, given how primitive Homo naledi appeared. Berger’s team argued that the species belonged to a lineage that diverged from our own ancestors more than 2 million years ago. While our lineage developed stature and large brains, theirs did not.
At first, scientists thought that the fossils were evenly distributed. But when they dug up more sediment in 2018, they found that two fairly complete skeletons rested inside oval depressions.
And it didn’t look like the skeletons had formed the depressions by sinking into the sediment. An orange layer of mud surrounded the ovals, but not their interior. Along the edges, the break appeared clean. This find and other evidence have now led researchers to conclude that the remains had been buried.
Until now, only humans were known to bury their dead, and the oldest known human grave dates back 78,000 years. Tebogo Makhubela, a geologist at the University of Johannesburg who was part of the team, said the fossils were at least 240,000 years old and could be 500,000 years old. If the researchers are right, the findings will challenge important assumptions about human evolution. Humans and Neanderthals have huge brains compared to earlier hominids.
“I think the interesting question then is what exactly are big brains needed for,” said Dietrich Stout, a neuroscientist at Emory University in Georgia.
By: CARL ZIMMER
THE NEW YORK TIMES
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6757750, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-06-12 20:50:05
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