Did a species of hominin with a brain less than half the size of ours thoughtfully entomb their dead deep inside a South African cave roughly 300,000 years ago? Two chambers full of bones–only hominin bones–seem to indicate that they did.
Anthropologists Lee Berger and John Hawks have led a team that is investigating Homo naledi, and they have excavated thousands of bone pieces from about twenty individuals. The bodies were likely placed in the chambers over a period of decades by other H. naledi as some form of ritual.
The team has determined:
1) There is no evidence of predators or scavengers, so the bodies weren’t dragged there
2) The bodies were not washed there in a flood, i.e. there is no evidence of significant water
3) There are no chutes or easier ways to get the bodies there other than up-and-down, difficult routes that can take an expert caver with lights and gear 45 minutes.
Check out Darryl de Ruiter’s powerful YouTube discussion: Did Homo Naledi Deliberately Disposed of Their Dead?
It boggles the mind that these small-brained creatures, who overlapped in time with our modern-looking human ancestors, could have negotiated their way about 100 meters through a complex cave in utter darkness and disposed of or interred their dead in a ritual or systematic process.
Here’s my question: Doesn’t that technically make them human?