12 questions · Science
The story of Homo naledi begins with two cavers who squeezed through an 18-centimetre slot in South Africa's Rising Star cave system in 2013 and landed in a chamber whose floor was covered with bones. What followed was one of the most unusual excavations in scientific history: palaeoanthropologist Lee Berger advertised on Facebook for specialists slim enough for the slot and experienced enough for the work: six women got the job and became famous as the "Underground Astronauts". They recovered over 1,500 bones from at least 15 individuals, the richest hominin assemblage in Africa. The species they brought to light is a mosaic: feet almost like ours, hands with curved climbing fingers, the shoulders of a tree-dweller and a brain the size of an orange, around 500 cubic centimetres. The greatest surprise came with the dating in 2017: merely 236,000 to 335,000 years old. This small-brained species lived not in some remote dawn but roughly alongside the earliest Homo sapiens. What remains to be explained is how the dead reached the barely accessible chamber. Berger's team considers deliberate deposition likely, together with charcoal traces and engraved wall markings; many specialists disagree and point to water, collapse or predators. The dispute is open and unusually fierce: science in action, in its most productive state.
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Foto: Lee Roger Berger research team · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
In the Rising Star cave system
In the "Cradle of Humankind" near Johannesburg. The find chamber is called Dinaledi: "stars" in Sesotho, hence the species name naledi: "star".
The Underground Astronauts
Lee Berger recruited them via Facebook: caving experience, excavation skills and shoulders narrow enough for an 18-centimetre slot. Dozens applied.
About 500 cubic centimetres
Roughly orange-sized and smaller than Homo habilis's: in a species that lived only some 300,000 years ago.
About 236,000 to 335,000 years
The 2017 dating was the real sensation: its archaic traits had suggested two million years. It lived alongside the first Homo sapiens.
It mixes modern and archaic traits
Nearly modern feet and teeth, but climbing hands, tree-dweller shoulders and a tiny brain: evolution changes traits one at a time, not as a package.
Foto: Lee Roger Berger research team · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Over 1,500
From at least 15 individuals of all ages: the richest early-human material in all of Africa, all from a single chamber.
Lee Berger
The American-South African palaeoanthropologist also made headlines with open publishing: the descriptions appeared freely accessible, the bone scans downloadable.
Whether the dead were deliberately placed there
Berger's team considers burials likely: a bold claim for an orange-sized brain. Others cite water, collapse or predators. Nothing is settled.
Star
After the Dinaledi chamber, the "stars" and the Rising Star cave system. A rare case of a species name taken from a local language.
A slot only 18 centimetres wide
Behind it the way drops 12 metres vertically. That inaccessibility is the argument for deliberate deposition and the puzzle: how did the bodies get in?
All of them: from infants to the elderly
An atypical picture: predators usually leave the young and weak. The complete age spread is one argument against carnivores as the cause.
That a small brain means primitive behaviour
Together with Homo floresiensis, naledi shows that brain size and capability are less tightly linked than long assumed: wiring matters more.
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