In 2013, a team of scientists traversed a deep, winding cave system to examine hundreds of bones from the species Homo naledi, a newly discovered human ancestor. Since then, the cave and the bones within have challenged our understanding of human evolution. The ruins were a confusing mix of primitive and modern features; leading researchers have hypothesized that Homo naledi was a hybrid between our ape-like ancestors and modern humans.

The fossils had feet designed for walking, hands similar to those of humans but with long, curved fingers suitable for climbing, and a brain the size of an orange similar to a gorilla’s.

Still, according to the team that explored the site, a large number of bones found about 80 meters (260 feet) from the entrance suggest that Homo naledi may have dragged remains into the cave for burial, displaying ritual behaviors usually associated with larger caves. , a human with a brain similar in appearance to ours.

The carvings and pieces of charcoal on the cave walls made the story revealed by the explorers even more fascinating; This small-brained human relative, who lived perhaps 300,000 years ago, created works of art and buried his dead at least 100,000 years before the earliest known human burial.

Other scientists and critics are not convinced. They’re not the authors of a new review analyzing evidence presented by paleoanthropologist Lee Berger and colleagues, published in a series of preprints earlier this year and more controversially introduced in the Netflix documentary The Unknown: Cave of Bones.

Big claims require strong evidence, but Maria Martinon-Torres, a forensic anthropologist at Spain’s National Center for Research in Human Evolution, and colleagues say Berger’s team does not provide enough data to support the claim that Homo naledi buried dead relatives or decorated sacred sites for long periods of time . Before the emergence of Homo sapiens.

“The evidence so far is not strong enough to support intentional burial of dead H. naledi or the making of putative engravings,” Martinon-Torres and colleagues write in their peer-reviewed paper.

Examining the available data, Martinon-Torres and colleagues note that H. naledi’s bones were scattered rather than skeletal or neatly arranged, as might be expected from a burial.

They also say that it is unclear where the “burial pits” begin and end; These pits, combined with their irregular shape, suggest that they are more likely to be natural depressions or cavities caused by erosion or sedimentation, rather than deliberately dug graves.

Berger and his colleagues did not consider or test other versions of how the bones fell so deep into the cave, Martinon-Torres and his colleagues said. The bones may have been dragged or buried underground by animals, or the cave itself may have been displaced later.

The “charcoal” is under-dated and does not show any scratch-like marks. According to the researchers, the charcoal may have been produced by wildfires that commonly occur in caves in South Africa; thus the possibility that H. naledi used fire to illuminate caves “remains entirely speculative.”

“Detailed analysis is needed to show that the so-called ‘engravings’ are indeed man-made traces, as such traces may have been created by natural weathering or animal claws,” says co-author Diego Garate, an archaeologist. at the University of Cantabria.

It is obvious that more research is needed on this magnificent place to fill in the gaps regarding H. naledi.

Martinon-Torres and colleagues wonder why Berger’s team went so far as to say that Homo naledi had excavated the graves of only three individuals without comparing them with 12 other partial skeletons found nearby. Others accused Berger and his colleagues of rushing science into headlines.

Rather than excavating all the bones, Berger and his team say they decided to leave as much material in situ as possible “to enable further testing and reproduction,” so we’ll have to see what happens next. Source