A reconstruction of Homo naledi – BioRxiv
A paleontological discovery by a research group from South Africa is extremely interesting because it raises many questions from both a scientific and anthropological point of view. In fact, scientists have said they have found the world’s oldest known burial site, containing the remains of a distant relative of Homo sapiens, who has a much smaller brain and was previously thought to be incapable of complex behavior. Researchers led by noted paleoanthropologist Lee Berger said they had discovered several specimens of Homo naledi (a hominin that lived primarily in trees) about 30 meters deep in a cave system in the “Cradle of Mankind,” a UNESCO World Heritage Site nearby, are buried Johannesburg. “These are the oldest burials ever found in hominin research, predating evidence from Homo sapiens burials by at least 100,000 years,” the scientists wrote in a series of pending papers published in BioRxiv.
A reconstruction of the cave where the “tombs” of Homo naledi were found – BioRxiv
If the results are confirmed, they will seriously challenge the current understanding of human evolution. In fact, it is usually assumed that the development of larger brains has enabled complex activities with “intangible meanings” such as burying the dead. The oldest burials excavated to date, found in the Middle East and Africa, contained the remains of Homo sapiens and were around 100,000 years old. The specimens found by Berger in South Africa date from at least 200,000 years ago. Scientifically, they belong to Homo naledi, a primitive species that had a brain the size of an orange and about five feet tall. It was present on Earth at least 335,000 years ago (when it disappeared is not yet clear).
A research phase in the South African cave – BioRxiv
With fingers and toes that could use tools, this species had already turned the idea that the evolutionary path was a straight line on its head, but the discovery that they were able to bury the dead suggests that they had the ability to think much higher than previously thought. Homo naledi was named after the Rising Star cave system where the first bones were found in 2013. There were at least five individuals in the pits, which researchers say were purposely dug and then filled in to cover the bodies.
Work in the Cave – BioRxiv
“These results show that burial practices were not limited to Homo sapiens, or at best Neanderthals or other hominids with large brain sizes, but also to more primitive forms,” the researchers said. The burials aren’t the only indication that Homo naledi was capable of complex emotional and cognitive behaviors, as geometric shapes, including a “figure that looks like our hashtag,” also appear to have been intentionally smoothed out of a pillar near the cave graves. Berger says: “Not only would this mean that humans are not unique in developing symbolic practices, but it could also mean that it was not the Sapiens who “invented such behaviors”. Agustin Fuentes, a professor of anthropology at Princeton University and a co-author of the studies, adds: “Furials, the creation of ‘meaning’ and even ‘art’ may have a much more complicated, dynamic and inhuman history than we previously thought.” “.