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The act of burying the deceased is often considered a distinctly human tradition, signifying our respect for those who have passed and serving as a symbol of acknowledging a life once lived. Anthropologists have long regarded burial as a universal expression of our humanity. However, a <keyword id="1555136" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="burial-site" source="Orion">burial site</keyword> dating back 200,000 years, recently found in South Africa, has raised questions about the truly "human" nature of this ancient practice.<br /><br />Located deep within a cave system near Johannesburg, this site has revealed a remarkable collection of remains, predating any evidence of burial practices by modern humans by a staggering 100,000 years. These remains belong to <em><keyword id="3047615" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="homo-naledi" source="Orion">Homo naledi</keyword></em>, a distant relative of <em>Homo sapiens</em>.<br /><br />This primitive species had a brain size roughly equivalent to an orange and stood at a height of around 1.5 metres (5 feet). They were distinctive with their curved fingers and toes, as well as their hands and feet adapted for both climbing and walking, equipped with the ability to use tools.<br /><br />The ancient burial site in the Cradle of Humankind, a <keyword id="638143" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="unesco-world-heritage" source="Orion">UNESCO World Heritage</keyword> site, contained at least five <em>Homo naledi</em> individuals buried in oval-shaped graves. Researchers believe that these intentionally dug and filled holes were created to hide the bodies. Additionally, geometric engravings, including a "rough hashtag figure," were found on the smoothed surfaces of a nearby cave pillar.<br /><br />These discoveries provide a unique glimpse into the past, shedding light on <em>Homo naledi</em><em>'s</em> capacity for complex emotions and cognitive behaviours. They not only reveal the capabilities of this ancient species but also challenge the idea that complex practices like burial were only achievable with the development of larger brains.<br /><br />Named after the "<keyword id="5492" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="rising-star" source="Orion">Rising Star</keyword>" cave system where the first bones were discovered in 2013, <em>Homo naledi's</em> distinctive characteristics blur the line between our ancestors resembling apes and modern humans.<br />

These primitive human ancestors were burying their dead 100,000 years before us!

<p><em><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Callao Cave Archaeology Project</span></p><p class="caption">Right upper teeth of the Homo luzonensis individual CCH6. From left to right: two premolars and 3 molars.</p></div><p></p></div></div></strong></em></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>Anthropologists may have discovered <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/discovery-300000-year-old-skulls-human-origins-2017-6">a new human relative</a> in the Philippines.</li><li>Named Homo luzonensis after the island it was discovered on, this ancient hominin lived between 50,000 and 67,000 years ago.</li><li><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1067-9">A new study</a> discusses how H. luzonensis shares traits with both <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/difference-humans-neanderthals-homo-sapiens-2016-9">older human ancestors</a> like <em>Australopithecus </em>and <em>Homo erectus</em>, and also modern-day humans. </li><li>Not all anthropologists are convinced it is a new species, but the discovery indicates this time period in our evolutionary history <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hobbit-people-disappeared-after-human-arrival-2016-4">was far more complicated</a> that scientists thought.</li></ul><p>In a hidden cave in the heart of the Philippine jungle, archaeologists have discovered a new human relative.</p><p>At the northern tip of the Philippines lies the tiny island of Luzon, and some 50,000 years ago, an ancient hominin species lived and thrived there, according to <span><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1067-9">a study</a> published April 10 in the journal Nature.</span></p><p>Hominins are any ancestors in the human lineage (including modern-day <em>Homo sapiens</em>) who are more closely related to each other than they are to chimpanzees. That includes everything from stone tool-wielding <em>Homo erectus </em>to our <em>Neanderthal </em>cousins.</p><p><em><strong>Read More:</strong> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-made-neanderthals-cannibals-2019-4">Nibbled-on bones found in a cave revealed that our Neanderthal ancestors ate each other. Scientists may have figured out why.</a></em></p><p>Scientists already knew that hominins lived on Luzon, given the 2010 discovery of a single foot <span>bone <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20569967">dated to 67,000 years ago</a> in the Callao Cave on the northern end of the island. But they didn't know whether that foot bone belonged to a member of <em>Homo sapiens</em> or an individual that was part of a new species.</span></p><p><span>The new study describes the discovery of additional fossils - several other foot and hand bones, a partial thigh bone, and seven teeth - in Callao Cave,</span><span> which helped anthropologists determine that a previously undiscovered ancient hominin once lived on Luzon tens of thousands of years ago.</span></p><p><span><em><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Callao Cave Archaeology Project</span></p><p class="caption">Callao Cave (Luzon Island, the Philippines), where scientists discovered the fossils of Homo luzonensis.</p></div><p></p></div></div></em></span></p><p><span>The finding will help scientists "improve our knowledge of human evolution, especially in Asia, where human evolution was clearly much more complex (and much more interesting) than what we thought before," lead author of the study, Florent Detroit, told Business Insider.</span></p><p><span>Detroit and his colleagues named the species <em>Homo luzonensis</em>, after the name of the island. It's the first new hominin species discovery since <a href="https://elifesciences.org/articles/09560"><em>Homo naledi </em>was discovered in South Africa in 2015</a>.</span></p><h2>A mosaic of traits made this hominin species hard to categorize </h2><p>The researchers assigned the bones that they found to three <em>H. luzonensis </em>individuals - two adults and one child.</p><p>"Overall these teeth and bones have a striking combination of characteristics never before reported together in a hominin species," Matthew Tocheri, an anthropologist from Lakehead University in Ontario who was not involved in the study, wrote in <a href="https://press.nature.com/wp-content/uploads/files/2019/04/Tocheri-NV-Detroit.pdf">a follow-up article for Nature</a>.</p><p><em>H. luzonensis' </em>teeth, for example, have a hodge podge of traits that match the teeth of <em>Homo sapiens, Homo erectus</em>, and another smaller-brained human ancestor, <em>Paranthropus, </em>in different ways.</p><p>The new species' teeth are "astonishingly small," Tocheri said, with not a lot of complexity on the crown surfaces (those tiny grooves and crevasses on the tops of teeth) - suggesting that <em>H. luzonensis</em>' teeth were more like those of modern humans.</p><p><em><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Callao Cave Archaeology Project</span></p><p class="caption">Right upper teeth of the Homo luzonensis individual CCH6. From right to left: two premolars and 3 molars.</p></div><p></p></div></div></em></p><p>On the other hand, <em>H. luzonensis</em>' hands and feet retained more "primitive" features, like those found in our older ancestors like <em>Australopithecus afarensis </em>and<em> Australopithecus africanus - </em>despite the fact that this new species and Australopiths are separated by 2 to 3 million years of time and evolution. </p><p>The new species' hand and foot bones were curved, and according to Tocheri, its toe bones were "essentially indistinguishable" in shape from Australopith toes.</p><p>In the study, the authors pointed to the fact that the unique combination of <em>H. luzonensis'</em> <em>Homo</em>-like teeth and Australopith-like hands and feet hasn't been seen in any other specimens in the fossil record, which "warrants their attribution to a new species."</p><h2>Is <em>H. luzonensis</em> actually a new species?</h2><p>Jeremy DeSilva, an anthropologist from Dartmouth College who was not involved in the study, still isn't convinced that the individuals classified as <em>H. luzonensis </em>represent a new hominin species.</p><p>"Whenever there's a new discovery like this, it's like Christmas morning for me," DeSilva told Business Insider. "But I'm not sure that I'm willing to accept that this is a new species quite yet."</p><p>He added that he doesn't think the researchers have enough fossil material to make this claim. "I'd like to see more; I'm sure they would too," he said. "Maybe a skull, a knee, an ankle, or a heel - more than three footbones, when each individual has 52."</p><p>Another anthropologist who was not involved in the discovery, William Harcourt-Smith from Lehman College, agrees with DeSilva, and told Business Insider that he was "cautious" about the designation. </p><p>"Assigning this to a new species is right at the margin for what's acceptable," Harcourt-Smith said. He echoed DeSilva's desire for additional material before making a definitive case for a new species, saying that the current evidence is "too meager" to make a definitive case one way or another.</p><h2>There just isn't enough evidence yet, according to some anthropologists</h2><p>Two of the most recent hominin species discoveries were based on far more fossil material than <em>Homo luzonensis</em>' unveiling was. </p><p>When scientists <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02999">discovered </a><em><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02999">Homo floresiensis</a>,</em> nicknamed "the Hobbit" for its short stature, on the Indonesian island of Flores, they described a near-complete female skeleton, including a skull. Since the discovery in 2003, <span>bones and teeth from some 12 </span><em>H. floresiensis<span> </span></em><span>individuals have been recovered at the Liang Bua cave .</span></p><h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/14405058@N08/2956430528/">Flickr/Ryan Somma</a></span></p><p class="caption">A cast of a Homo floresiensis skull.</p></div><p></p></div></div></h2><p>The discovery of <em>Homo naledi </em>included <span>at least 15 individuals, which allowed the anthropologists to study and assess several specimens of the same bone. </span></p><p><span>But when it comes to <em>Homo luzonensis</em>, scientists have found just 13 bones total, and for</span> DeSilva and Harcourt-Smith, that just isn't enough data to make the call on whether what Detroit and his colleagues found in the Phillippines is a new species.</p><p><span>"I'm going to consider myself a fence sitter on this one," DeSilva said about whether or not he agreed with the designation.</span></p><h2><em>H. luzonensis</em> probably lived undisturbed on the island for thousands of years</h2><p><em>H. luzonensis</em>' mosaic of traits makes it difficult to determine where it sits on the human family tree related to its other hominin brethren.</p><p>"Almost every aspect of the new fossils was (and are still) surprising," Detroit said. Almost all of them show unexpected features for a "recent" hominin that lived at the same time as <em>Homo sapiens</em>, he added. </p><p>All the anthropologists agreed that <em>H. luzonensis</em>' feet were of particular interest. </p><p>"The anatomy is eye brow-raising," DeSilva said. He said the new species' foot bones don't fit into the range of what scientists might find in modern humans - or other hominin species.</p><p><em><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Callao Cave Archaeology Project</span></p><p class="caption">Proximal foot phalanx of Homo luzonensis CCH4 in side view. The bone is about 2 centimeters long.</p></div><p></p></div></div></em></p><p>Typically, curved hands and feet like <em>H. luzonensis'</em> suggest that the species climbed trees at least some of the time. Australopiths with similar features likely walked on two feet while still being able to climb trees.</p><p>But the problem with this new species is that it lived at least 2 million years or so after Australopiths, during an era when anthropologists generally accept that all human ancestors only walked on two feet and did little else.</p><p>"We are certainly not pretending that <em>H. luzonensis</em> was "back to the trees," Detroit said. Instead, the study authors think the primitive, curved foot bones might have something to do with <em>H. luzonensis' </em>island habitat.</p><p>In order to get to Luzon from mainland Asia, <em>H. luzonensis </em>would have had to partake in a sea crossing. The surrounding water made accessing Luzon a challenge, limiting species migration onto and off the island.</p><p><em><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Callao Cave Archaeology Project, courtesy of Marion Devy</span></p><p class="caption">The cave where anthropologists discovered Homo luzonensis.</p></div><p></p></div></div></em></p><p>Isolated habitats like islands are ripe for the appearance of unique sets of traits, which the study authors think could explain the species' distinct anatomy, including its "primitive" hands and feet.</p><h2>What this species tells us about our human relatives' evolutionary history</h2><p>According to Detroit, 15 years ago, scientists' conception of human evolution in Asia was very simple. <em>Homo erectus </em>migrated out of Africa to settle in east and southeast Asia around 1.8 million years ago, with "nothing happening until the arrival of <em>H. sapiens</em>" in the area until around 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, when modern humans eventually took the place of <em>H. erectus</em>.</p><p>That version of our evolutionary history no longer holds water.</p><p>Detroit's team dated <em>H. luzonensis' </em>age to somewhere between 50,000 and 67,000 years old. That means this hominin was alive at the same time as at least four other human relatives: Neanderthals, Denisovans, <em>Homo floresiensis, </em>and modern humans. </p><p>"We continue to realize that few thousands of years back in time, <em>H. sapiens</em> was definitely not alone on Earth," Detroit said. "The scenario was clearly much more complex than just <em>H. sapiens</em> replacing <em>H. erectus</em>."</p><p><em><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Callao Cave Archaeology Project, courtesy of Marion Devy</span></p><p class="caption">View of excavations in Callao Cave.</p></div><p></p></div></div></em></p><p>There's no question that these fossil are something different, Harcourt-Smith said. "It's not modern human, doesn't seem to be a hobbit either, but we need more data. This is just a tantalizing glimpse of how diverse hominins really were."</p>     <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/babies-honey-infant-botulism-bacteria-health-danger-2019-3">Babies can't eat honey because it can cause 'infant botulism' - here's what that means</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Scientists may have discovered a new human relative. It lived on a tiny island in the Philippines at the same time as Homo Sapiens.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>An extinct species called Homo naledi buried their dead 100,000 years before humans.</li><li>These actions were previously thought to be associated with larger-brained species.</li></ul><p>Researchers have found that an extinct human species buried their dead and carved symbols on cave walls 100,000 years before humans, challenging previous assumptions about human evolution.</p><p>The species, called Homo naledi, had brains about one-third the size of a modern human's, according to <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/05/world/homo-naledi-burials-carvings-scn/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CNN</a>.</p><p>Until now, these behaviors had only been associated with larger-brained species such as Homo sapiens and Neanderthals.</p><p>The research is laid out in three studies accepted for publication in the journal eLife, CNN said.</p><p>"These recent findings suggest intentional burials, the use of symbols, and meaning-making activities by Homo naledi. They indicate that this small-brained species of ancient human relatives were performing complex practices related to death," paleoanthropologist Lee Berger said in a statement per CNN. </p><p>Berger was the lead author on two studies, a co-author on the third, and National Geographic Explorer in Residence.</p><p>"That would mean not only are humans not unique in the development of symbolic practices, but may not have even invented such behaviors," he said.</p><p>Homo naledi fossils were first discovered in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa in 2013, and Berger and his team have continued to explore the caves ever since.</p><p>The team found the remains of Homo naledi adults and children laid to rest in the fetal position and covered in soil, which pre-date any known Homo sapiens burials by at least 100,000 years.</p><p>Homo naledi walked upright and manipulated objects by hand like humans, Berger said, but they were shorter, thinner, had smaller heads, and were more powerfully built, per CNN.</p><div type="image" title="Professor Lee Berger shows a reproduction of the skull of a Homo naledi named Leti, found inside the Rising Star Cave System at the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site near Maropeng, South Africa on November 4, 2021." height="2362" width="3543" msid="100902185" hostid="261" sizebytes="679818"></div><p>The team also found symbols carved into the cave walls, which they described as resembling hashtags and other geometric symbols, according to CNN. </p><p>It is unclear what the symbols mean and whether the species used them to communicate.</p><p>The cave art was estimated to be between 241,000 and 335,000 years old.</p><p>"What we can say is that these are intentionally made geometric designs that had meaning for naledi," Agustín Fuentes, National Geographic Explorer, who was lead author on the third study, said, per CNN. </p><p>"That means they spent a lot of time and effort and risked their lives to engrave these things in these places where they're burying bodies."</p><p>He said that the discovery challenges assumptions about the progress of human evolution.</p><p>"The challenge here, then, is that we now know that Homo naledi, in addition to Homo sapiens and Neanderthals and Denisovans and a few others, were engaging in the kind of behavior that we, even just a few decades ago, thought was unique to us," he said. </p>

An extinct species buried their dead and carved symbols 100,000 years before humans. The findings challenge our understanding of human evolution, researchers say.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A <keyword id="12417509" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="human-ancestor" source="Orion">human ancestor</keyword> called Homo naledi lived in southern Africa between about 241,000 and 335,000 years ago.</li><li>Anthropologists found the first skull belonging to a Homo naledi child deep in a cave.</li></ul><p>Anthropologists Marina Elliott and Becca Peixotto found themselves <a href="https://theconversation.com/i-was-part-of-the-team-that-found-the-homo-naledi-childs-skull-how-we-did-it-171153">squeezing through a tight tunnel</a> four years ago, nearly 300 feet underground. They were searching for ancient human remains in a network of caves near Johannesburg, South Africa.</p><p>With only headlamps to guide them through the cave system, called Rising Star, the duo scrambled over boulders until they came upon a narrow shaft. Only one could enter the shaft at a time, so Peixotto pretzeled her body around the corner. </p><p>There she saw them, on a limestone shelf: teeth and fragments of skull belonging to a Homo naledi child.</p><p>Homo naledi is a mysterious human ancestor that lived about 250,000 years ago. Peixotto, a researcher at American University, has helped discover bones from two dozen naledi individuals in the Rising Star caves over the last eight years. </p><div type="image" title="homo naledi leti rising star cave" height="1536" width="2048" msid="87555966" hostid="261"></div><p>Those other remains were located in a chamber near the newly found skull, but this recent discovery is unprecedented, since it's the first infant naledi fossil ever found, according to <a href="https://paleoanthropology.org/ojs/index.php/paleo/article/view/64">a pair</a> of <a href="https://paleoanthropology.org/ojs/index.php/paleo/article/view/68">studies</a> published Thursday. One of those studies, co-authored by Elliott, Peixotto, and 17 other researchers, details the exploration of the Rising Star system. A second paper describes the skull. </p><p>Lee Berger, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Witwatersrand who co-authored both studies, said the skull could teach experts about the growth and development of this species, which likely lived alongside modern humans.</p><p>The remote location of the finding, too, offers clues into how naledi handled their dead.</p><p>The child's body was likely brought into the cave tunnel by members of its own species, Berger said in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkpMfQKPQRo">a video</a> about the discovery. That means the child may have been ritually buried - a behavior typically seen in more advanced human ancestors, like Neanderthals and the earliest Homo sapiens.</p><h2>Anthropologists named the child 'the lost one'</h2><div type="image" title="homo naledi leti rising star cave lee berger" height="4236" width="5649" msid="87555968" hostid="261"></div><p>The researchers named the child "Leti," after the word "letimela" in the local Setswana language, meaning "the lost one."</p><p>All told, they found six teeth and 28 skull fragments in 2017, which were used to reconstruct Leti's skull over the last four years. </p><p>Since the team didn't find any other body parts nearby, they couldn't determine whether Leti was male or female. Children's bones are more breakable than those of adults, and their skulls are thinner, so they don't preserve as well. </p><div type="image" title="homo naledi leti child skull teeth" height="1752" width="3122" msid="87555970" hostid="261"></div><p>But Berger's team estimated Leti's age to be between four and six years old using its teeth, since teeth grow at a standard rate. So the researchers compared the size of Leti's teeth to those of young humans.</p><p>They also determined that Leti had a similar brain size to other members of its species: up to 610 cubic centimeters, or about one-third of a modern human's brain size.</p><p>"This would have been around 90% to 95% of its adult brain capacity," Debra Bolter, co-author of the skull study, said <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/research-news/2021/2021-11/a-child-of-darkness.html">in a press release</a>.</p><div type="image" title="homo naledi leti child skull" height="2007" width="2676" msid="87555975" hostid="261"></div><p>So far, the researchers haven't been able to determine precisely when Leti died.</p><p>Berger estimated it was about a quarter-of-a-million years ago, since the remains of the adult naledi found in the cave system are between 241,000 and 335,000 years old.</p><h2><strong>An 'upset parent' may have placed Leti in its final resting place</strong></h2><div type="image" title="homo naledi leti rising star cave" height="2304" width="1728" msid="87555978" hostid="261"></div>There's potential for plenty more discoveries in the Rising Star's underground rivers and passages.<p>Leti was found just 40 feet away from another remote chamber, Dinaledi, where Elliott, Peixotto, Berger, and others discovered the first naledi fossil in 2013. The difficulty of accessing Dinaledi, let alone Leti's resting place, suggests the child's remains may have been deliberately placed or buried there.</p><p>"It's easy to imagine you might have some upset parent that would want to place this young individual into its final resting place," Juliet Brophy, who also co-authored the skull study, said <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkpMfQKPQRo">in the video</a>.</p><p>Leti's skull also shows no signs of damage, suggesting the body stayed safe from scavengers.</p><p>Berger said his team will continue to look for more naledi <keyword id="11954588" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="fossils" source="Orion">fossils</keyword> in the Rising Star cave system. Eventually, he said, they hope to confirm whether these remote passages served as a burial ground for this mysterious human ancestor.</p>

A child's skull found deep inside a South African cave offers new clues about a group of mysterious human ancestors

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A tooth found in a cave in <keyword id="12359584" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="laos" source="Orion">Laos</keyword> was found to be from an ancient human species called <keyword id="11955095" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="denisovans" source="Orion">Denisovans</keyword>.</li><li>The tooth, most likely a girl's, places the extinct humans in southeast Asia for the first time. </li></ul><p>Remains of a now-extinct ancient human species called Denisovans were found in southeast Asia for the first time.</p><p>Scientists were seeking remains from Denisovans in the area because they knew that some of their genes have been passed on to modern human populations in southeast Asia today.</p><p>But until now, scientists had not been able to formally place them there. </p><p>A single tooth more than 130,000 years old that belonged to a young Denisovan was found in a cave in Laos.</p><p>"That was kind of the big mystery: why is Denisovan DNA found in these southeast Asian populations, but not found in Eurasia or anywhere else," Mike Morley, an associate professor from the Microarchaeology Laboratory at Flinders University and an author on the study, said in a press release. </p><p>"This is the kind of 'smoking gun,' this tooth," he said. </p><p>The tooth was found in a cave site named Tam Ngu Hao 2 in Laos in 2018. The findings were published in the peer-reviewed journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29923-z">Nature Communications on Tuesday.</a></p><div type="image" title="Views of the TNH2-1 specimen, Nature Communications." height="1000" width="2000" msid="91642709" hostid="261"></div><h2>Denisovan remains have only been found in two other locations</h2><p>Denisovans are a species of <keyword id="13043935" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ancient-humans" source="Orion">ancient humans</keyword>. Like the Neanderthals, Homo naledi, or Homo bodoensis, they have gone extinct while modern humans survived. </p><p>This subgroup of ancient humans has been particularly elusive because very few remains have been discovered to date.</p><p>Most of the remains have been found in the Denisova cave in Siberia, thousands of miles North of Laos.</p><p>But scientists knew these ancient humans must have gone down as far as southeast Asia, where they would have crossed paths with modern humans. <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abc1166">A 2020 study</a> found that a small number of Denisovan genes can be found in some populations in southeast Asia. </p><p>The Laos discovery is only the second to place Denisovan outside of Siberia. </p><p>This cave, where the first Denisovan remains were found in 2008, was likely inhabited by Denisovans about 300,000 years ago to about 50,000 years ago. It has taught us that these humans likely <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2235308-thousands-of-denisovan-tools-reveal-their-stone-age-technologies/">used stone tools</a> and that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/denisovans-neanderthals-humans-occupied-denisova-cave-siberia-2021-6">they likely interbred with humans and neanderthals. </a></p><p>A 2020 study revealed a jawbone found <a href="https://africa.businessinsider.com/science/ancient-tools-and-dna-discovered-in-a-tibetan-cave-shed-unprecedented-light-on-humans/4jvrmps">in Baishiya Karst Cave in Tibet, Xiahe County, Gansu, China,</a> was from a Denisovan that lived about 160,000 years old.</p><div type="image" title="denisovan" height="1080" width="1440" msid="91642712" hostid="261"></div><h2>Clues reveal the tooth's origin</h2><p>The conditions in the cave mean the tooth's DNA has been too badly preserved to be read. But scientists found other clues about its origins.</p><p>An analysis of the proteins in the tooth revealed it likely belonged to a girl, aged 3.5 to 8.5 years old.</p><p>The tooth's internal structure also resembles the shape of those found in the Tibetan specimen of Denisovans, which indicates the child was Denisovan. </p><p>The rock around the tooth could also be dated, which indicates the child lived between 164,000 and 131,000 years ago.</p><div type="image" title="Inside Ngu Hao 2 cave showing the concreted remanent cave sediments adhering to the cave wall. The overlying whitish rock is a flowstone that caps the entire deposit." height="1499" width="1999" msid="91642714" hostid="261"></div><h2>Local children first spotted the tooth</h2><p>The scientists were first told about the fossil-rich cave by local children in 2018, Laura Shackelford, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Illinois and a co-author of the study, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/17/science/science-discovery-family-tree.html">told The New York Times.</a></p><p>When they reached the closet-sized cavity where the children said they found the bones "all you could see were bones and teeth, embedded in the walls and in the ceiling of this cave," said Shakelford. </p><p>"They were just sort of everywhere," she said, per the Times. </p><p>Most of these were bones from pigs, deer, and pygmy elephants, which had teeth marks suggesting they were part of a meal, the Times reported. But among the fossils, the scientists found a single tooth belonging to the ancient human.</p>

An ancient tooth found in a cave proves an extinct species of archaic humans lived in southeast Asia over 130,000 years ago

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Mark Thiessen/National Geographic via AP</span></p><p class="caption">The species shares similarities with both modern day humans and its earlier ancestors.</p></div><p></p></div></div>MAGALIESBURG, South Africa (AP) - Scientists say fossils found deep in a South African cave reveal a new member of the human family tree.</p><p>Lee Berger, who led the expedition, told reporters Thursday the creature is named Homo naledi (nah-LEH-dee). Naledi means "star" in Sesotho, a local South African language.</p><p>Roughly 1,500 species were found in the caves and show that the species stood at roughly 5 feet tall and weight roughly 45 kilos.  </p><p>Paleoanthropologist John Hawks said the creature shows a surprising mix of human-like and more primitive characteristics. It may be an early member of the evolutionary group that includes modern people and our closest extinct relatives.</p><p>Physically, the species shares similarities with both modern day humans and its earlier ancestors. While its hands, wrists, and feet reportedly bear a resemblance to homo sapiens, its upper-body and brain size are much more similar to earlier humans. </p><p>The fossils came from at least 15 individuals. Scientists don't know how old they are, and experts said that makes it hard to assess the significance of the find.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>University of the Witwatersrand/AFP John Hawks</span></p><p class="caption">The crania of a homo naledi -- a new human species on display at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Another mystery is how the bones found their way into the chamber of the cave which is only accessible through steep climbs and rough terrain. One possibility is that the room was repeatedly used to dispose of bodies.</p><p><span>Lee Berger, research professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, told AFP: "<span>Until this moment in history we thought the idea of ritualised behaviours directed towards the dead... was actually unique to Homo sapiens."</span></span></p><p>(Reporting by Lynsey Chutel <span class="text-and">and</span> Malcolm Ritter)</p>

The remains of a new species of human have been found in a South African cave

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Mark Thiessen/National Geographic</span></p><p class="caption">A model of what this new ancestor relative of ours might have looked like. This image is from the October issue of National Geographic magazine.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>On September 10, scientists announced the truly remarkable <a href="http://www.techinsider.io/new-human-ancestor-homo-naledi-hominin-discovered-2015-9">discovery of thousands of bones belonging to a previously unknown species of human ancestor</a>.</p><p>They gave the new species the name <em>Homo naledi</em>, after the Dinaledi chamber of the Rising Star cave where the bones were found.</p><p>The finding is already starting to change our understanding of how our own species evolved. At the same time, it's prompted some scientists who weren't involved in the research to raise questions about what it really means.</p><p>The single cache of "more than all other hominid bones discovered in Southern Africa" is something that's helping us solve the story of our biological family in the genus <em>Homo, </em><a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/explorers/bios/lee-berger">Lee Berger</a><em>,</em> the lead researcher on the <em>Homo naledi</em> expedition said on a press call.</p><p>There are many stunning components to this finding, which is featured on National Geographic magazine's <a href="http://natgeo.org/naledi">October cover</a>. This newly discovered species is unlike any we've ever seen, with feet that are fairly close to those of modern humans, yet a brain the size of an austrolopith - a type of ancient human relative that preceded the <em>Homo</em> genus.</p><p>Perhaps most incredibly, Berger and his team concluded that after ruling out other possibilities, the most likely way that these skeletal fossils ended up in the chamber that they did - down a 50 foot chute that was almost impossible to find, about 300 feet into a dark cave - was that they were placed there intentionally.</p><p><strong>Still, as with any new discovery, scientists are questioning certain aspects of the story. Some ask how to best classify the bones, how we know we've truly found a new species, and how it's possible to argue that creature with a brain the size of a gorilla's was intentionally disposing of its dead.</strong></p><p>Questioning scientific findings is completely normal and doesn't take away from the remarkable aspects of the discovery. Science is a process of skepticism, chipping away at facts and growing more and more certain along the way. Here's what some researchers still want to know - and how the many scientists who worked on this discovery have answered those questions so far.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Peter Schmid/eLife/courtesy William Harcourt-Smith</span></p><p class="caption">The foot of the Homo nadeli is remarkably similar to our own.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>How can we say this is definitely a new species?</h2><p>Several anthropologists argue that without knowing the age of the bones - the researchers haven't dated them yet - we can't be sure that these specimens aren't from an already-known species, like <em>Homo erectus</em>.</p><p>"If they are as old as two million years, then they might be early South African versions of <em>Homo erectus</em>, a species already known from that region," anthropologist <a href="http://www.anat.stonybrook.edu/people/facultypage/jungers" class=" u-underline" data-link-name="in body link" data-component="in-body-link">William Jungers</a> of Stony Brook School of Medicine <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/10/new-species-of-ancient-human-discovered-claim-scientists">tells The Guardian</a>.</p><p>In that same Guardian story, anthropologist <a href="http://www.aim.uzh.ch/Members/profofinstitute/zollikofer.html" class=" u-underline" data-link-name="in body link" data-component="in-body-link">Christoph Zollikofer</a> of the University of Zurich argues the same. "The few 'unique' features that potentially define the new species need further scrutiny, as they may represent individual variation, or variation at the population level," he says.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image"><a title_source="Skeleton: Stefan Fichtel/National Geographic; Body Comparison Painting: John Gurche; Sources: Lee Berger and Peter Schmid, Wits; John Hawks, University of Wisconsin-Madison" title_caption="Here the new species is compared to H. erectus and australopithecines such as Lucy. This image is from the October issue of National Geographic magazine. (Open the image in a new window for a real close look.)" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/55f148e9dd0895480e8b46da-960/07_ngm_1015_mm8345_mystery_man_gfx.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span>Skeleton: Stefan Fichtel/National Geographic; Body Comparison Painting: John Gurche; Sources: Lee Berger and Peter Schmid, Wits; John Hawks, University of Wisconsin-Madison</span></p><p class="caption">Here the new species is compared to H. erectus and australopithecines such as Lucy. This image is from the October issue of National Geographic magazine. (Open the image in a new window for a real close look.)</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The idea that perhaps specimens don't fully represent a new species has been controversial in anthropology before, notably with <em>Homo <em>floresiensis</em></em>, a small hominid also known as "the Hobbit." There was lots of argument over whether it was a separate species or just a deformed specimen of another known one - though <a href="http://www.livescience.com/29100-homo-floresiensis-hobbit-facts.html">most recent research has come down in favor</a> of "the Hobbit" being a unique species.</p><p>But in the case of the new discovery, the researchers involved say that they were able to find bones from 15 different individuals, and they believe there are more still to be found. The characteristics that make <em>Homo naledi</em> unique are found in all the skeletons they've looked at, meaning they aren't some sort of deformity or pathological difference.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>National Geographic</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>"We had so much material to work with," John Hawks, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin and a <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.09560">senior author on a paper describing the new species</a>, said on the press call.</p><p>The modern feet, austrolopith-like skull, curved fingers, ape-like shoulders, and <em>Homo</em>-like brow make for a unique creature, unlike any we've ever seen, <a href="http://www.amnh.org/our-research/paleontology/staff">William Harcourt-Smith</a>, a researcher who led some of the work on the new specimen, tells Tech Insider.</p><h2>Is it really so closely related to us?</h2><p>The H<em>omo </em>part of ? <em>Homo naledi?</em> indicates that it's part of the same genus - a wider classification than species - as modern humans. But even that part is up for debate.</p><p>"If I'd been writing those papers I wouldn't have assigned this to the genus <em>Homo</em>," <a href="http://www.amnh.org/our-research/staff-directory/ian-tattersall?">Ian Tattersall</a>, curator emeritus of the American Museum of Natural History tells Tech Insider.</p><p>In some ways this new species seems so primitive that it could be considered an austrolopith, he says. The feet and shape of the skull (though not its size) were more like primitive <em>Homo</em> specimens, but many other features could have come from a creature that predates our more direct relatives.</p><p>Despite these similarities with more primitive ancestors, the researchers involved in the new discovery say that there are enough characteristics that are associated with other species classified as <em>Homo </em>that they think that their new finding could share a common ancestor with <em>Homo sapiens </em>(us) and<em> Homo erectus.</em></p><p>And as Tattersall says, "there are no absolute rules involved here."</p><p>Where exactly a species fits into a classification system is a judgment call for scientists that they'll come to agreement on over time, he says. "I think this is all going to shake out."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Elliot Ross/National Geographic</span></p><p class="caption">It's not an easy cave to get into. This image is from the October issue of National Geographic magazine.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Did <em>Homo naledi</em> really bury its dead?</h2><p>The most controversial argument the discoverers of <em>Homo naledi</em> made was that it looked like the bodies they found had been intentionally placed deep inside this cave. In other words, this creature was repeatedly disposing of their dead in the same place, a behavior that's shocking for a creature with a brain one-third the size of our own.</p><p>"Intentional disposal of rotting corpses by fellow pinheads makes a nice headline, but seems like a stretch to me," Jungers <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/10/new-species-of-ancient-human-discovered-claim-scientists">tells The Guardian</a>. Another anthropologist told them that these "claims are clearly for the media."</p><p>The researchers involved in the work know that anything like "burial" sounds crazy. As far as we knew until now, members of our family tree didn't even contemplate intentional body disposal until around 300,000 years ago - and though we have no idea how old these fossils are, they look like they could be far older.</p><p>But they say that they've ruled out all of their other hypotheses for how those bodies could have got to this underground tomb.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Robert Clark/National Geographic</span></p><p class="caption">Lots of fossils allowed them to really see what set the new species apart. This image is from the October issue of National Geographic magazine.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The bodies look like they arrived there over time and come from individuals of many different ages. There aren't signs of violence or cannibalism. And there are almost no remains from any other creature, indicating that this was a place that had to be sought out deliberately - not a place that some kind of creature dragged its prey. </p><p>And just because the bodies were deliberately deposited in a cave, researchers aren't suggesting any kind of ritual or religion; the intent could have been purely practical, even some kind of basic safety measure.</p><p>If they weren't placed there intentionally, Harcourt-Smith says, "it's up to someone to come up with a better explanation."</p><p>Tattersall agrees, saying that it is, "by elimination, the only rational possibility that they have." But he says there's much more to learn.</p><p>"This really is a work in progress that has gone from absolutely nothing to where we're at today with a lot of logistical and hard work and analysis, all in two years," he says. "For a vast amount of material, that's a very short time to digest. So look upon this as a progress report, and the beginning of a really exciting journey."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/harassment-video-shoshana-roberts-suing-catcalling-director-2015-7">Watch the viral street harassment video that is now the source of a new controversy</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="ZzNm9kcTrTG4LE8w3S8yE1tE1d4I_s3X" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Scientists are raising important questions about the discovery of a new human ancestor

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Elliot Ross/National Geographic</span></p><p class="caption">Anthropologist Marina Elliott (left) and paleontologist Ashley Kruger explore a side chamber in the Rising Star cave where more than 1,500 fossil elements of a new species, Homo naledi, were discovered. This image is from the October issue of National Geographic magazine.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Deep inside the Rising Star cave system, 30 miles northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa, there's a hidden chamber that's almost impossible to reach.</p><p>To get inside, cavers and scientists crammed themselves into a crack that was just over seven inches wide. Then they had to descend 50 feet down a pitch-black chute, mostly the same size as its entrance.</p><p>"It's insane ... some of the most difficult conditions ever for paleontologists to work in," says <a href="http://www.amnh.org/our-research/paleontology/staff">Dr. William Harcourt-Smith</a>, a researcher with the paleontology division of the American Museum of Natural History and a professor of paleoanthropology <a href="http://www.gc.cuny.edu/Page-Elements/Academics-Research-Centers-Initiatives/Doctoral-Programs/Anthropology/Faculty-Listing/William-Harcourt-Smith">at Lehman College</a>.</p><p>But at the bottom of that narrow chute, they found a treasure trove:<strong> thousands of bones belonging to a previously unknown species closely related to humans</strong>, a small hominin (an extinct early relative of humans).<strong> This predecessor to modern humans walked upright and yet had a tiny brain, and it's already totally transforming the way that scientists understand how our own species evolved. </strong></p><p>The new human ancestor is called <em>Homo nadeli</em>, named after the Dinadeli chamber of the cave. Dinadeli, meaning "many stars," is itself named after the Rising Star cave system where it was discovered.</p><p>This chamber has only been explored over the past two years, and the remarkable findings within are being revealed for the first time today.</p><p>One of the most remarkable things about this discovery is that researchers think that the bones were found where they were because these human ancestors buried bodies in this chamber intentionally, depositing them there over a period of time. This behavior is unheard of for hominin creatures that appear as primitive as these.</p><p>This discovery was announced September 10 by the University of the Witwatersrand, the National Geographic Society, and the South African National Research Foundation, with findings described in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.09560">two papers published in the journal eLife</a> and featured as the <a href="http://natgeo.org/naledi">cover story in the October issue</a> of National Geographic Magazine.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image"><a title_source="Jason Treat, National Geographic, Source: Lee Berger, Wits" title_caption="A cross-section showing the Dinaledi chamber within the Rising Star cave. This image is from the October issue of National Geographic magazine." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/55f148e9dd0895480e8b46d5-960/02_ngm_1015_mm8345_mystery_man_gfx.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span>Jason Treat, National Geographic, Source: Lee Berger, Wits</span></p><p class="caption">A cross-section showing the Dinaledi chamber within the Rising Star cave. This image is from the October issue of National Geographic magazine.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>The discovery and 'underground astronauts'</h2><p>Two years ago, South African cavers Rick Hunter and Steve Tucker - now National Geographic explorers - knocked at the door of National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/explorers/bios/lee-berger">Lee Berger</a> of the University of the Witwatersrand.</p><p>They'd been exploring the Rising Star cave, having received some training on looking for early human ancestor fossils, and they'd gone off map, into an unknown crevice that led to a deep chamber. There were bones there, and as Berger described it on a press call, "they realized this may be something interesting."</p><p>They brought photos to show some of what they'd seen. Berger, who earlier in his career discovered another new species of early human ancestor, <em>Australopithecus sediba</em>, realized that this could be an unprecedented finding.</p><p>The cave was incredibly hard to access, so Berger and other researchers put out a call on social media. They were looking for a team that had the physical capability and stature to enter the Dinaledi chamber - as well as the academic training required to identify and excavate precious fossils that could tell the story of the hominins that preceded us on this planet.</p><p>They found a team of what they call "underground astronauts," six female scientists and cavers with degrees in archaeology and paleoanthropology.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Christo Saayman</span></p><p class="caption">The "underground astronauts" (left to right): Becca Peixotto, Alia Gurtov, Elen Feuerriegel, Marina Elliott, K. Lindsay (Eaves) Hunter and Hannah Morris.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>They first entered the cave on November 10, 2013.</p><p>Becca Peixotto, a member of the team that Berger describes as "one of the six people willing to quite literally risk their lives on a daily basis," said on the press call that "it was like a puzzle to get each fossil out."</p><p>They had to carefully remove each individual bone and then figure out how to get it up the seven-and-a-half-inch-wide, 5o-foot-deep chute.</p><p>One of the first skull fragments was particularly challenging. It would help reveal the size of the head and the brain of this early human cousin, but getting this fragment up and out without breaking it was daunting.</p><p>Three team members passed it to each other to get the skull up the chute, before carrying it down the section of the cave known as the Dragon's Back, and then going on a "Superman crawl" through another tiny shaft that would bring them out to the light of day.</p><p>It was "just a quiet relay of 'take this,' - 'okay I've got it,'" Peixotto says. But there was a huge cheer as they emerged into the South African sun.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Robert Clark/National Geographic</span></p><p class="caption">The team lays out fossils of H. naledi at the University of the Witwatersrand's Evolutionary Studies Institute. This image is from the October issue of National Geographic magazine.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>What the bones reveal</h2><p>They've excavated almost 1,600 fossils from the cave, but thousands more remain inside, and are still being examined. There are at least 15 different individuals represented in the remains they've studied so far, identified by their teeth.</p><p><strong>This is the largest collection of hominid fossils ever discovered on the continent of Africa, and it changes what we thought about how the related groups of species to which we belong evolved.</strong></p><p>Previously, we thought it likely that the gradual evolution of <em>Homo sapiens</em> came about with species gaining "modern characteristics" like our feet <em>alongside</em> our larger brains. But these new <em>nadeli</em> creatures - which are much better represented than our collections of almost all other hominins - show that the evolution of these human ancestors wasn't so straightforward.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Mark Thiessen/National Geographic</span></p><p class="caption">A reconstruction of Homo naledi's head by paleoartist John Gurche, who spent some 700 hours recreating the head from bone scans. This image is from the October issue of National Geographic magazine.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Their feet were incredibly similar to those of modern humans, says Harcourt-Smith, who led the study of the newly discovered creature's feet. <em>Homo naledi</em> stood about five feet tall, and yet they had a skull whose volume was only about one-third of our own, a tiny brain in comparison to modern humans. Despite their upright walking ability, with stiff feet and toes that couldn't grasp things as easily as more primitive animals, their shoulders and hands indicate they would have been quite comfortable climbing through trees and perhaps, through caves.</p><p>This confounds the idea of how humans evolved, Harcourt-Smith tells Tech Insider, making the tree of evolution "more bushy." What we think about as the journey from early primates to modern humans is more confusing and takes more turns than previously believed.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Peter Schmid/eLife/courtesy William Harcourt-Smith</span></p><p class="caption">The foot of the Homo nadeli is remarkably similar to our own.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>More confusingly, we have no idea how old the fossils are. From their physical structure, their morphology, Berger says that it looks like <em>Homo nadeli</em> evolved at the early stages of all creatures that fall under the <em>Homo</em> genus, perhaps up to 2.8 million years ago.</p><p>But we have no idea if these particular specimens come from then or from a much more relatively recent time period. By email, Berger tells Tech Insider that for now it's "impossible to answer" whether they could have come from even the relatively recent past.</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">Despite how primitive </span><span class="s1"><em>Homo nadeli </em></span><span class="s1">appears to be, it's even theoretically possible that they could be young, dating back to sometime in the past 30,000 to 100,000 years, Harcourt-Smith writes in a follow-up email. "If it were young, then we would have a truly fascinating story of a remnant population hanging on for a long time," he says.</span></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image"><a title_source="Skeleton: Stefan Fichtel/National Geographic; Body Comparison Painting: John Gurche; Sources: Lee Berger and Peter Schmid, Wits; John Hawks, University of Wisconsin-Madison" title_caption="A composite skeleton of H. naledi's overall body plan and an illustration of how it compares to Homo species such as H. erectus and australopithecines such as Lucy. This image is from the October issue of National Geographic magazine." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/55f148e9dd0895480e8b46da-960/07_ngm_1015_mm8345_mystery_man_gfx.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span>Skeleton: Stefan Fichtel/National Geographic; Body Comparison Painting: John Gurche; Sources: Lee Berger and Peter Schmid, Wits; John Hawks, University of Wisconsin-Madison</span></p><p class="caption">A composite skeleton of H. naledi's overall body plan and an illustration of how it compares to Homo species such as H. erectus and australopithecines such as Lucy. This image is from the October issue of National Geographic magazine.</p></div><p></p></div></div>There's no saying whether they are a missing link in our own evolutionary chain or just a related cousin who diverged somewhere along the way.</p><p>Researchers haven't been able to carbon-date or DNA test the bones yet because doing so would require destroying some, and they didn't want to do that before describing the findings.</p><p>But the particularly shocking thing is that there isn't other material in this particular chamber that can be used to date these fossils. That's what leads researchers to believe that these bodies were buried - intentionally placed - in this deep, isolated tomb, 100 meters from the cave's entrance.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>National Geographic</span></p><p class="caption">National Geographic Magazine's October Cover</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Burying the dead</h2><p>Behavior like the intentional repetitive placement of dead bodies (burial) is something Berger described on the press call as something we didn't think any hominin species "even contemplated before 300,000 years ago."</p><p>They've considered other possible explanations.</p><p>Geological features show that the bodies arrived in the cave over a period of time, meaning that this wasn't a one-off event or catastrophe of some sort. Teeth show that the remains come from individuals of many different ages, from young children to teenagers to elderly adults. There aren't signs of violence, falls, or cannibalism. And there are almost no remains from any other creature, indicating that this was a place that had to be sought out deliberately - not a place that some kind of creature dragged its prey.</p><p>Yet the idea that a hominin with such a primitive brain would have carried its dead to the same spot over time defies everything we've thought about our early ancestors. "It's a game-changer, it's new, it's not something you'd ever expect from something with such a small brain," says Harcourt-Smith.</p><p>And yet they've ruled out all of their other hypotheses for how those bodies could have arrived in this underground tomb.</p><p>Now, says Harcourt-Smith, "it's up to someone to come up with a better explanation."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/into-the-badlands-trailer-2015-7">We're already sold on AMC's insane-looking kung fu western 'Into the Badlands'</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="h1N2w2djp8xBKM1JY8rl0xtsaaz7SHpa" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

What scientists found deep inside a cave challenges ideas of human evolution

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>TI</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>The recent discovery of bones from a <a href="http://www.techinsider.io/new-human-ancestor-homo-naledi-hominin-discovered-2015-9">previously unknown human ancestor</a> in a cave in South Africa adds a tantalizing new piece to the puzzle of human evolution.</p><p>A couple of cavers stumbled across the remains of at least 15 individuals in South Africa's Cave of Stars. The species, which is named <em>Homo naledi </em>('naledi' means 'star' in the South African language Sotho)<em>,</em> had a small brain, yet remarbly humanlike features. And the bones appear to have been deposited in the cave intentionally, a sign that this human ancestor may have 'buried' its dead.</p><p>The findings, which were described today in <a href="http://elifesciences.org/content/4/e09560">two studies</a> in the journal eLife, have scientists intrigued.</p><p>"Anytime we add a twig onto the branch of our family tree it's exciting," anthropolist Briana Pobiner of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History, who was not involved in the research, told Business Insider.</p><p><em>H. naledi</em> has a combination of traits that's different than any scientists have seen before, and while they don't know how old it is, "this species is potentially related to the earliest members of our own genus, <em>Homo</em>," Pobiner said.</p><h2>An unlikely find</h2><p>The cave where the bones were found lies in a region of South Africa known as the Cradle of Humankind, because so many fossils of early human ancestors have been found there. According to <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/150910-human-evolution-change/">National Geographic</a>, the cave is a popular climbing spot, but the chamber where this archaeological windfall lay is incredibly hard to get to, and the bones would probably not have been found if it weren't for two cavers, Steven Tucker and Rick Hunter, who were exploring it two years ago.</p><p>To get to the chamber, they first had to squeeze through a narrow passage known as Superman's Crawl, because in order to fit through you have to keep one arm pressed against your body and raise the other one above your head like the famous comic book hero.</p><p>Then, the cavers had to drop 40 feet down a narrow, pitch-black chute. At the bottom, they found a trove of bones, strewn about as if they had been tossed in there on purpose. They knew they had found something exciting, as scientists would later confirm.</p><p>Lee Berger, a paleoanthropologist at South Africa's University of Witswatersrand, led the investigation of the bones. He was too big to get inside the cave himself, so he recruited some skinny female scientists to retrieve the bones, while he directed the operation aboveground.</p><p>The team recovered 1550 human ancestor fossils, including bones and teeth - the most specimens of a single ancestral human species ever found in Africa.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Jason Treat, National Geographic, Source: Lee Berger, Wits</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Tantalizing questions</h2><p> </p><p>The new species lies somewhere along the evolutionary tree between <em>Australopithecus afarensis</em> (which contains the famous remains of Lucy) and <em>Homo erectus</em> (an extinct great ape species that walked upright).</p><p>"It could be an ancestor of <em>Homo erectus</em>," Pobiner said, "or an evolutionary cousin, a shared common ancestor. It's hard to know yet." In some ways it's more primitive than other human ancestors, and in some ways more modern, she added.</p><p>The new species had humanlike hands, wrists and feet, but more primitive shoulders, torso and pelvis. It also had a much smaller brain than modern humans.</p><p>What's especially curious, though, is that the bones appear to have been intentionally dumped in the cave. Pobiner thinks this is the most likely interpretation, because if the bones fell in accidentally, they would've found the remains of many other animals as well.</p><p>However, the bones don't appear to have been buried ceremoniously. It seems more likely that these early human ancestors dumped them there to keep away predators which might be attracted by the dead bodies, Pobiner said. This suggests these individuals may have lived within a small area, unlike many early human ancestors, which were hunter-gatherers, she said.</p><p>Big findings like this are often published in well-known journals like <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword> or Nature, but Berger may have decided to publish in the journal eLife because it's open-access (meaning it's available to the public without a subscription), Pobiner thinks. Part of Berger's strategy is "to make the findings and research as widely accessible as possible," she said.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/evolution-animation-science-million-years-humans-2015-2">Incredible animation shows 550 million years of evolution in 60 seconds</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="FpajJrczp09uYfgvHPInNLVlmpzvbL1O" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

2 climbers crawled through an impossibly tiny cave and discovered a new human ancestor that defies everything scientists know about evolution

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>2015 was undoubtedly the year CRISPR took over the minds and hearts of <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> lovers everywhere. <p>On Thursday, Science Magazine announced the gene-editing technique won&#xa0;its&#xa0;Breakthrough of the Year Award, beating out other events such as the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/new-human-ancestor-discovery-2015-9">discovery of Homo Naledi</a>, a previously unknown&#xa0;ancestor to humans&#xa0;and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/new-horizons-just-phoned-home-and-is-in-good-condition-2015-7">the Pluto flyby</a>, which allowed scientists to get an up-close view of Pluto and its moons for the first time ever.</p><p>Science's John Travis explained that although CRISPR has been a runner-up for the award in past years, "this is the year it broke away from the pack, revealing its true power in a series of spectacular achievements."</p><p><span>CRISPR-Cas9 is a tool that&#xa0;allows&#xa0;scientists&#xa0;to swap a particular, potentially faulty gene with another, potentially healthy one. It sets itself apart from other gene-editing techniques, Travis said, because it's so relatively easy and inexpensive to use.&#xa0;</span></p><p><span>This year, scientists used CRISPR to modify genes in pigs to make their organs viable for transplants into humans, and to make <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/first-gene-edited-dogs-2015-10">super muscly beagles</a>.&#xa0;</span></p><p><span>Here's a video announcing all the runner-ups and the winner:</span></p><p><span><div></div></span></p><p class="embed-spacer"><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-crispr-will-revolutionize-biology-2015-10">Learn more about CRISPR and why 2015 was such a big year for the gene-editing technique.</a></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-crispr-dna-editing-tool-works-2015-10">Watch science writer Carl Zimmer explain CRISPR in 90 seconds</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="02Z2M0eDoPAy5YuLDPvh7Tg3nC3qY_56" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

A controversial tool that lets scientists rewrite DNA just achieved a major milestone

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>"Lucy Australopithecus Restoration model" by Momotarou2012 - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lucy_Australopithecus_Restoration_model.jpg#/media/File:Lucy_Australopithecus_Restoration_model.jpg">commons.wikimedia.org</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div><a href="https://www.google.com/doodles/41st-anniversary-of-the-discovery-of-lucy">Tuesday's Google doodle</a> celebrates the 41st anniversary of the discovery of the famed <span>early human species</span> "Lucy," who <span class="s1">lived more than 3 million years ago.</span></p><p>Her remains were unearthed on November 24, 1974, <a href="https://iho.asu.edu/about/lucys-story">near the village of Hadar in Ethiopia</a>, by anthropologists Donald Johanson and Tom Gray.</p><p>They found 40% of her skeleton, including her skull, forearm, thigh bone, pelvis, lower jaw, and a few ribs.</p><h2>Humanity's most famous ancestor</h2><p>Lucy belongs to a species called <em>Australopithecus afarensis</em>, which itself is merely a branch on a bigger tree which scientists refer to as hominids.</p><p><span>The hominid group includes humans, other great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans), and all of their now-extinct relatives.</span></p><p><span>But what distinguished the first hominids - some of whom would go on to become modern humans - from other apes is their ability to walk on two feet. </span></p><p>While Lucy's species could stand upright, studies suggest they may have spent a lot of their time <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ancient-humans-spent-lots-of-time-in-trees-2012-10">in trees</a>.</p><p>Based on dating of volcanic ash in which Lucy was found, <a href="http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/22/1/6.abstract?sid=ce1fb3b0-3e97-4b33-95fa-795e10ba1630">scientists estimate</a> her age to be between 3.18 and 3.2 million years old.</p><p>She was named after the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," which was supposedly playing on the night her discoverers were celebrating their finding.</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">Because of Lucy's size, scientists determined she was a female. Males of her species are bigger.</span></p><p>What we still don't know is how Lucy died.</p><p>According to <a href="https://iho.asu.edu/about/lucys-story">Arizona State University's Institute of Human Origins</a>, if she was killed by an animal, such as a hyaena, we would find signs that her bones had been chewed or crushed, but there's not a lot of evidence for that. The only mark on her bones is a puncture wound from a carnivore tooth on the top of her left pubic bone, which occurred near the time of her death but may not have been the cause.</p><p>Earlier this year, the remains of a fossil of the species <em>Australopithecus prometheus</em>, dubbed "<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/little-foot-fossil-found-in-the-cradle-of-humanity-is-the-same-age-as-lucy--but-is-from-a-different-species-of-humanity-2015-4">Little Foot</a>," was found to have lived around the same time as Lucy's species.</p><p>In September, scientists discovered a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/new-human-ancestor-discovery-2015-9">new human ancestor</a> in a cave in South Africa, dubbed <em>Homo naledi.</em> The new species is thought to lie on the evolutionary tree somewhere between Lucy's species, <em>A. afarensis</em>, and <em>Homo erectus</em>, an extinct great-ape species that walked upright.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/evolution-animation-science-million-years-humans-2015-2">Incredible animation shows 550 million years of evolution in 60 seconds</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="FpajJrczp09uYfgvHPInNLVlmpzvbL1O" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Google's doodle is dedicated to one of anthropology's greatest discoveries

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Christo Saayman</span></p><p class="caption">The "underground astronauts," from left: Becca Peixotto, Alia Gurtov, Elen Feuerriegel, Marina Elliott, K. Lindsay (Eaves) Hunter, and Hannah Morris.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>When South African spelunkers <span>Rick Hunter and Steve Tucker went off-map and <a href="http://www.techinsider.io/new-human-ancestor-homo-naledi-hominin-discovered-2015-9">discovered a hidden chamber in Rising Star cave</a>, about <span>30 miles northwest of Johannesburg, it was an incredibly lucky find.</span></span></p><p><span><span>They found and then crammed themselves through a hole that was at one point <em>just over seven inches wide</em>, and then traveled 50 feet down.</span></span></p><p><span><span>At the bottom they spotted a jawbone. They took photos with a GoPro, and then brought them to the <span>the door of National Geographic explorer-in-residence </span><a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/explorers/bios/lee-berger">Lee Berger</a><span> of the University of the Witwatersrand.</span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span>Berger realized that this was big: the jaw looked like some kind of primate related to early humans. And there were more bones - many more. But it was going to require some special skills to get them out.</span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span>So he <a href="https://www.facebook.com/PhysAnth/posts/10151950417394414">posted an ad on Facebook</a>. "<span>We need perhaps three or four individuals with excellent archaeological/palaeontological and excavation skills," it read. "<span>The catch is this - the person must be skinny and preferably small. They must not be claustrophobic, they must be fit, they should have some caving experience, climbing experience would be a bonus. They must be willing to work in cramped quarters, have a good attitude and be a team player."</span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span><span>He ended up with six women who fit the insane physiological and academic requirements for the task, who he'd later refer to as "underground astronauts." These six brave scientists would unearth the </span></span></span></span></span><span class="s1">largest collection of hominid fossils ever discovered in Africa, a whole new species to transform our understanding of the human family tree. They called it <em>Homo naledi</em>.</span></p><p><span class="s1">Scroll on for the story of their fantastic expedition, which is featured in <a href="http://natgeo.org/naledi">National Geographic's October cover story</a>.</span></p>

You Searched For "homo naledi" and got 12 results

These primitive human ancestors were burying their dead 100,000 years before us!

Ashmita Gupta

Scientists may have discovered a new human relative. It lived on a tiny island in the Philippines at the same time as Homo Sapiens.

Aylin Woodward

An extinct species buried their dead and carved symbols 100,000 years before humans. The findings challenge our understanding of human evolution, researchers say.

Alia Shoaib

A child's skull found deep inside a South African cave offers new clues about a group of mysterious human ancestors

Aylin Woodward

An ancient tooth found in a cave proves an extinct species of archaic humans lived in southeast Asia over 130,000 years ago

Marianne Guenot

The remains of a new species of human have been found in a South African cave

Associated Press,Charles Clark

Scientists are raising important questions about the discovery of a new human ancestor

Kevin Loria

What scientists found deep inside a cave challenges ideas of human evolution

Kevin Loria

2 climbers crawled through an impossibly tiny cave and discovered a new human ancestor that defies everything scientists know about evolution

Tanya Lewis

A controversial tool that lets scientists rewrite DNA just achieved a major milestone

Lydia Ramsey

Google's doodle is dedicated to one of anthropology's greatest discoveries

Tanya Lewis

The story of 6 women who risked their lives inside a cramped cave to discover a new human ancestor

Kevin Loria

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