Tiny-Brained Ancestor May be History’s First Gravedigger and Artist

Three papers that were presented at a meeting today and put online laid out an astounding situation. It is suggested that approximately 240,000 years ago, a large network of limestone caves in South Africa was inhabited by small-brained forebears of modern humans who transported their dead through a maze of narrow corridors.

These small cave explorers excavated shallow graves by torchlight, occasionally positioning the bodies in fetal orientations and putting a stone tool close to a child’s hand. Before such habits appeared in contemporary people, some predated modern humans by over 100,000 years.

They carved crosshatches into the walls of caves, while others roasted small creatures in what amounted to an underground funeral.

Based on an abundance of fossil discoveries in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa, this scenario, if accurate, would have a significant impact on both the capabilities of our extinct cousins, Homo naledi, and the emergence of human behavior.

Redefining Intelligence with Complex Behaviors

Team leader Lee Berger, a National Geographic explorer in residence with an appointment at the University of the Witwatersrand, said at a press conference, “We are facing a remarkable discovery here of hominids, nonhumans with brains a third of the size of [modern] humans… burying their dead, using symbols, and engaging in meaning-making activities.”

“It’s possible that [modern] humans did not even invent these symbolic behaviors; rather, our development of them is not unique.”

Other scholars, however, are largely dubious about the publications, which

Given the abundance of skeletons, paleoanthropologist María Martinón-Torres of the Spanish National Research Centre for Human Evolution said, “I am more and more persuaded that something amazing happened here.” However, they haven’t passed the muster to demonstrate purposeful burial.

In 2013, the first finding made by Berger’s team in Rising Star was the bones of at least fifteen people found at the base of a chute 50 kilometers northwest of Johannesburg. Because of its unusual combination of characteristics, including a small brain and a spherical skull, the scientists named it a new species.

The fact that it lived so recently—between 241,000 and 335,000 years ago, according to radiometric dates on sediments above and below the remains—astonished researchers as well. As more skeletons showed up, Berger

Berger Spots Potential Grave via Livestream

Since he was too large to squeeze through the tight spaces to reach the chamber, he watched team members work in the caves in 2018 and followed the activity via livestream. The camera suddenly bumped and entered infrared mode. Berger was able to distinguish the precise margins of a “oval feature” in the black and white photograph. “I believe it to be a grave,” he said to the diggers. “They declined.”

Subsequent excavation revealed that the oval was a hole measuring 50 by 25 centimeters and 8 centimeters deep. It was filled with 83 pieces of bone and teeth from one H. naledi individual and a few pieces from other individuals.

There were orange-red stones scattered throughout the bones, which seemed to come from a lower layer. Berger, who had to give up his weight in order to enter the chamber, thinks the stones demonstrate how ancient grave diggers dug out the hole, removed rocks and mud, put them aside, and then covered the body with them.

The group discovered a second batch of extremely brittle bones in another part of the cave. Two large slabs of dirt containing bones were retrieved, plastered over, and brought to their laboratory. CT scans there showed 90

Symbolic Evidence in the Caves

On the cave walls, they also found geometric designs and crosshatchings engraved; some of these shapes were carved on top of one another, suggesting that they were etched at separate times. The oldest known examples of undeniable symbolic art are from Blombos Cave in South Africa, which date back 73,000 years.

Berger, however, contends that since no other hominin left behind traces in the caves, the undated etchings have to be the creation of H. naledi. Berger was scheduled to discuss the discovery at the Richard Leakey Memorial Conference at Stony Brook University today.

He also claims that H. naledi had fire, despite the fact that there is no proof of this in the papers, in order to function in the dark. However, fire was regulated by hominins in other areas at least 600,000 years ago. Berger has uploaded pictures of charcoal online.

Clive Finlayson, an evolution scientist at the Gibraltar National Museum, concurs. “The structure of the brain is more important than its size,” he asserts. Since no evidence of large-brained people has been discovered in the cave, he believes the etchings were “most likely” created by H. naledi. According to Finlayson, “it demonstrates that Homo naledi had a degree of self-awareness.”

Debate and Challenges to the Interpretation

Some, however, contend that the team’s data does not support such leaps. Archaeologist João Zilhão of the University of Barcelona, who has suggested that Neanderthals created early cave art, adds, “The whole thing is unconvincing.”

He and others claim that the H. naledi carcasses could have been positioned by natural processes. The dead might have fallen, been washed in, or been thrown into the chamber, for instance.

The bones may have shifted and became covered in dirt due to geologic movement and sedimentation, which are frequent in caves. According to Durham University archaeologist Paul Pettitt, the undated etchings could have been created considerably later. They bear a resemblance to later carvings made by Homo sapiens in South Africa.

The Need for Further Investigation

According to Pettitt, an authority on ancient graves, the facts now “sadly do not present a clear and unambiguous demonstration of a deliberate burial. “In order to ascertain if the bones and sediments were deposited simultaneously in a burial or at various times, as well as whether the dead were later disturbed by geological movements, he adds the team must complete digging the pits and carefully examine the remains.

According to Martinón-Torres, it’s not evident from the pictures whether the remains were buried intentionally or if they were laid down whole. She claims, “We don’t have articulated bodies.”

The abundance of broken objects that one would anticipate from a grave site, like the stone tools used to excavate the pits, is also absent. “Typical cultural remnants from incarcerations should be present,” says Arizona State University archaeologist Curtis Marean.

“Considering the incredibly difficult work environment, they are going to have a tremendous struggle making an ironclad case for pits and burials,” he continues.

Scholars concur that Berger and his colleagues have discovered an amazing death scene by discovering so many specimens of H. naledi.

However, Pettitt and others argue that H. naledi cannot be credited with creating meaning-making activities in the absence of more convincing evidence. “This place is impressive because of the hard science of excavation,” adds Pettitt. “Speculation on Homo naledi’s origins can and should be ignored.

Read the original article on: Science

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