As I type this just now, Lee Berger's Carnegie lecture about Homo naledi ecology has just ended. To be honest, I'm quite fatigued from livetweeting the lecture, so I will skip the preamble and jump straight into the discoveries and my thoughts.
Berger begins the lecture by teasing a new Netflix docuseries releasing later this year and recounting his journey and the discovery of Rising Star, which takes up most of the broadcast. Now, we've the goodies. First, he discusses last year's infant skull found deep within remote fissures. This skull, which perhaps was overlooked by me initially so this may not be new information per se, was found isolated on top of a limestone shelf. Then I started getting anxious, he leaves this slightly open to interpretation—but he suggests that it was placed there. He starts to recall his first in-person experience with the cave, detailing his weight loss and struggle up and down the chute. Here's the meat and potatoes.
In the chamber he noticed the ceiling was completely charred, covered with soot. Fire, burning. After his hour and fifteen long ascent (12 meters is a long distance while wedged within a 7'' space!), he surfaces to find one of his scientists, Bones, having found a hearth and burnt antelope bones. More fire, more burning. Next to the hearth was another, larger, hearth. He segues into the remotest sections of Rising Star, the fissures, and indeed the tightest. Within these segments, he reports a massive chamber covered with charcoal and burnt animal bones. Here, he found a pile of stacked rocks on top of more bones and a hearth/waste-disposal-jointed site. This is fascinating for reasons I discuss below.
First, evidence for fire is now very strong. This answers age-old questions critics of his have had. Second, this is the first non-sapiens culture found, and we are certain of this. This large chamber has not been disturbed since its last "occupation" (quotes for reasons upcoming) in the Middle Pleistocene. There is no evidence that any other species had made these structures. Funny enough, Berger notes that two fragments of charcoal were found and reported at the initial path, but were dismissed on being poor grounds for fire use speculation.
Something above noteworthy is that the chambers that bear skeletal elements are absent of culture, and the chambers full of culture are absent of skeletal elements. Berger speculates in the Q&A portion that they did not live here, but that the area was ritualistic. He explains that humans go to absurd lengths to protect and honour our dead. See, we dig 6ft holes into the earth and seal their bodies in locked boxes, and he thinks no different of naledi. In fact, he thinks these behaviours typical, and I agree. In the same session, he hints that molecular bio., naledi being contemporary with other species and other news is yet to be released. For contemporality, he suggests a 2 year span for press releases and announcements.
What do I think? Well I think a lot. First, ritual and culture use is amazing, easy. This is an extraordinary useful find, and it opens a lot of doors. This hominin, archaic and pea-brained as is, was more complex than morphology or geology could have ever told us. Could this suggest the same for australopithecines? Well, maybe or maybe not. I think that maybe this complexity could be more 'advanced' for lack of a better term. Possibly, it could be more of an ecology thing. Who knows.
That's all for now but Berger and workers have hinted at much more to come in the future. I hope this rushed write-up was sufficient enough and (hopefully) not too terrible in the grammar department... Images of the hearths and rock pile were screengrabbed from the broadcast and posted in my thread if you wish to see. Until next time!
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