A mysterious species of ancient people carved drawings in caves and used fire
Researchers have found evidence that a mysterious representatives of an extinct species of people buried their dead and carved symbols 100,000 years before the appearance of man reasonable. And the brain, which belonged to an extinct species known as Homo naledi, was about a third larger than a modern human brain.
These findings could change our understanding of human evolution because so far, such behavior has only been associated with Homo sapiens and larger-brained Neanderthals, CNN notes.
Fossils belonging to the species Homo naledi were first discovered in the Rising Star Cave System in South Africa during an excavation in 2013. The cave system is part of South Africa's Cradle of Humankind, a UNESCO World Heritage Site covering an area where scientists have found fossils of many ancient species of human ancestors — remains that help reveal the story of human evolution.
Paleoanthropologist Dr. Lee Berger and his team of “underground astronauts” continued their work in the vast, dangerous caves to better understand the extinct ancient ancestors of man.
Now, the research team has unearthed the remains of Homo naledi adults and children, who were buried in the fetal position in cave cavities and covered with earth. These burials are older than any known Homo sapiens burials by at least 100,000 years.
While working to identify the cave burials, the scientists also discovered a number of symbols engraved on the walls of the cave, estimated to be between 241,000 and 335,000 years old, but they want to continue testing for a more accurate date.
Symbols include deeply carved hashtag-like cross-hatching and other geometric shapes. Similar symbols found in other caves were carved by early Homo sapiens 80,000 years ago and by Neanderthals 60,000 years ago, and were thought to be used as a way to record and share information.
“These recent finds are evidence of intentional burials, the use of symbols, and Homo naledi's meaning-giving activities. It seems inevitable that, taken together, they indicate that this species of ancient human relatives with small brains performed complex death-related practices, says Dr. Lee Berger. – This would mean that humans are not only not unique in developing symbolic practices, but may not even have invented such behavior.
Exploring the maze-like cave system of the Rising Star and its chambers is not for the faint of heart, notes CNN .
So far, the team has mapped more than 4 kilometers of caves that have a vertical depth of 100 meters and expand more than 200 meters in length, says study lead geologist Dr. Tebogo Mahubela, senior lecturer in geology at the University of Johannesburg.
The cave system includes deadly steep descents and tiny passages, such as Superman's Crawl, a 40-metre-long, 25-centimeter-wide tunnel that requires explorers to crawl on their stomachs, said Dr. Keneylo Molopyane, a National Geographic researcher.
Berger said that he had to lose 25 kilograms to get into the dangerous rooms of the cave in 2022.
“It was the most horrible and wonderful experience of my life,– admits Dr. Berger. – I almost died walking out of there, but it was obviously worth it to make some of these discoveries. But I think the important part of it, however, is that the journey would not be nearly as difficult, I think, for Homo naledi”.
According to Berger, Homo naledi had some similarities to humans, such as walking upright and manipulating objects by hand, but members of this species had smaller heads, shorter stature, and a leaner and more powerful physique.
Homo naledi's shoulders, which were oriented for better climbing, and teeth shared similarities with earlier hominins such as Australopithecus, said Dr. John Hawkes, professor of anthropology and paleoanthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
According to Hawkes, The researchers found many fossils of Homo naledi throughout the caves, including the remains of very young babies and elderly people, which helped them understand the naledi as a population. And as the team continued to delve deeper into the caves, it became clear that Homo naledi was very familiar with and used vast parts of the cave system.
When Berger and his team announced the discovery of Homo naledi in 2015, they speculated that perhaps the species was deliberately disposing of its dead in the cave.
But the idea that a small-brained hominin did this , was considered a highly controversial hypothesis.
In 2018, the team began to find evidence supporting the idea that Homo naledi deliberately buried their dead. Scientists have discovered ovals dug into the surface of the caves, resembling holes, and the remains of bodies placed inside in a twisted form.
According to Berger, other burials were dug horizontally into the slopes, and the bodies were placed inside, indicating that the remains were not there by other, unintentional means.
“This is not a body that died in a hollow or pit. It was a whole body that was covered in mud and then decomposed in the grave itself, demonstrating in part that it was buried as a single piece of flesh and blood at the time, but not as a result of some dramatic collapse or something that washed it away. Berger said. – We believe that they have passed the litmus test of human burials or archaic human burials and the most ancient human burials, and therefore we describe them as graves or burials of a non-human species, Homo naledi”.
And then the team found an artifact in the burial and found a carving on the wall.
One of the graves contains a stone in the form of a tool, buried next to the hand of an adult Homo naledi. In the passage above the burials, in the hallway, there is a wall covered with rock paintings.
Deeply carved geometric figures appear on the walls of the dolomite rock, the hardness of which reaches 4.5-4.7 on the Mohs scale, which helps researchers evaluate scratch resistance of minerals. Dolomite is about halfway to diamond (at the top of the scale) in terms of hardness, which means it would take an extremely long time and effort to carve into the walls, Berger said.
The team believes that Homo naledi, not Homo sapiens, is responsible for the carvings, as there is no evidence that humans have ever been inside these caves.
Homo naledi was able to see what they were doing inside the caves using fire. Evidence, including soot, charcoal and charred bones, is scattered throughout the caves, Berger said, suggesting they were actively lighting fires.
Both the burials and the symbols imply that Homo naledi was capable of meaningful behavior, said Agustín Fuentes, National Geographic researcher, in situ bioculture specialist and lead author of the third study.
The meaning of the symbols is unclear, and the researchers are not can tell if they were used as a kind of language or communication within a species.
“What we can say is that these are intentional geometric patterns that mattered to the ice,” Fuentes said. “This means that they spent a lot of time and effort and risked their lives to engrave these things in the places where they bury the bodies”.
According to Fuentes, the results of the Naledi study suggest that the larger the brain may not be the only link to the complex behaviors that researchers once assumed were unique to humans.
“So the problem here is that we now know that Homo naledi, in addition to Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, Denisovans and a few others, behaved in ways that we, even just a few decades ago, thought were unique to ourselves.” ;, — he said. «This means we need to rethink the timing of the use of fire, the significance and burial of the dead in hominin history.»
Chris Stringer, head of human origins research at the Natural History Museum in London, says that although he previously was skeptical of the claims of the complexity of Homo naledi's behavior and its monkey-sized brain, «the considerable evidence now presented by Berger and colleagues of possible burials and wall engravings cannot be easily dismissed.»
The results obtained raise many questions , including whether such behavior was present in an ancient common ancestor that lived much earlier than Homo naledi or humans, and why we have such a large brain “if human-like behavioral complexity can be achieved with a brain less than half the size this size,» Stringer said.