With the announcement that the first burials of the genus Homo would predate official dating by at least 100,000 years, this raises a new, stormy question in the scientific community. Why is the dating of the first burials such a complex question? How does this change the way we look at people from the past? An update on controversial news about Homo naledi.
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American paleoanthropologist Lee Berger opened a major debate among specialists in human history by announcing that he had discovered that the species Homo naledi voluntarily buried their dead 100,000 years before current dating. In South Africa, Lee Berger and his team discovered what was thought to be a burial site. Homo naledi was discovered by the same researcher in 2013 and officially announced in 2015. It is a small hominin whose remains of bones have been sighted in the Rising Star caves.
Small size and complex dating
The early debate about Homo naledi focused on whether it was more of an Australopithecus or an early representative of the genus Homo. He’s probably 5 feet tall and has a small skull. Everything about him has yet to be clarified, although the dating has been set at -335,000 to -241,000 years. However, with such ancient skeletons, it is difficult to get a precise idea of how these small individuals lived. They remain enigmatic in many ways, particularly when it comes to their cerebral and cognitive abilities.
bones and a natural slide
As early as 2015, Lee Berger and his team put forward the idea of voluntary burial practices for Homo naledi, which was again supported in 2023. In fact, various chambers, very difficult to access from the Rising Star site, allowed the discovery of numerous bone fragments and remains of individuals of all ages. One of the subterranean chambers is only accessible to researchers via a tiny hose. But what could the chambers of these caves have looked like in the time of Homo naledi? For the researchers on site, these are not skeletons that would have been flung past in the natural chimneys and whose bones would have landed scattered on the floor of the rooms, but rather the bodies carefully placed in a fetal position in a Homo naledi chosen place. This is where the scientific community is divided.
Announcements but no scientific articles yet
In the scientific world, the announcement of discoveries and studies is done through standardized scientific articles that allow the entire community to know the methods and rationale behind the conclusions. This also enables the opening of an official dialogue between scientists. However, the announcement by Lee Berger and his team has not yet been the subject of a peer-reviewed publication, although an unvalidated article exists. Additionally, the media aspect of National Geographic’s discovery poses challenges for the researchers in terms of the reliability and methods of the on-site team.
In this way, Lee Berger’s team will be able to explain why they believe the holes dug in the floor of the tomb may have been burials, why they believe the carvings on the cave walls appear to be contemporary with Homo naledi or whether this is later work, and understand the significance of the coals burned on site. In fact, the burial of a deceased does not necessarily imply that this act necessarily has a ritual function, and that is what is sometimes difficult to prove in archaeology, but especially in paleoanthropology.
What difference would it make if Homo Naledi buried his dead?
In terms of official chronology, this is a major leap in time compared to official Paleolithic dating. This would indicate that individuals of the genus Homo nalendi had the brain capacity to envisage treatment or even possible ritualization of their dead. This shatters the notion that prehistoric individuals are incapable of reflecting and transcending into dimensions other than their everyday lives. This would then no longer only be the case for the youngest homo genera. While some scientists do not deny the discovery, they await solid evidence and arguments to consider the possibility of such burial treatments.