Homo naledi: Der Felskletterer

Angesichts des spärlichen Baumbewuchses, der einst im südlichen Afrika herrschte, überrascht die Existenz eines Homininen, der offensichtlich ans Klettern angepasst war. Doch anscheinend konnte sich Homo naledi damit einen anderen, sonst nur schwer zugänglichen Lebensraum erschließen.

https://www.spektrum.de/magazin/homo-na ... er/1989094

241,000 to 335,000 Years Old Rock Engravings Made by Homo naledi in the Rising Star Cave system, South Africa

Abstract

The production of painted, etched or engraved designs on cave walls or other surfaces is recognized as a major cognitive step in human evolution. Such intentional designs, which are widely interpreted as signifying, recording, and transmitting information in a durable manner were once considered exclusive to Late Pleistocene Homo sapiens. Recent work has demonstrated that other hominin groups also made such marks, including Neanderthals (Rodríguez-Vidal et al., 2014; Hoffmann et al., 2018), and possibly Middle-Pleistocene Homo erectus (Joordens et al., 2015). Such durable signs indicate an intentionality characteristic of meaning-making (Kissel and Fuentes 2018) which has been argued to require significant levels of cognitive abilities not found in species with smaller brain sizes (Parkington, 2010). In fact, the evolution of such meaning-making symbols is thought to be a core aspect of what it means to be “human” (Henshilwood, 2009). Here we present the first known example of abstract patterns and shapes engraved within the Dinaledi subsystem of the Rising Star Cave in South Africa. We identified markings incised into the dolomitic limestone walls of the cave. The engravings described here are deeply impressed cross-hatchings and other geometric shapes. The surfaces bearing these engravings appear to have been prepared and smoothed. In some areas there is residue that creates a sheen on the surface possibly indicating repeated handling or rubbing of the rock, and there is evidence of the application of dirt or sand to the surface by non-natural processes. Homo naledi entered this part of the cave system and buried bodies within the both the Dinaledi Chamber and adjacent Hill Antechamber between 241 and 335 ka (Dirks et al., 2017; Robbins et al., 2021, Berger et al, 2023a). The engravings described here are found on a pillar in the Hill Antechamber that extends into the natural fissure corridor that links the two chambers and we associate them with H. naledi.

https://elifesciences.org/reviewed-prep ... ab-content

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ABC News
Discovering Homo naledi’s meaningful burials

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED3t5flTlhk

National Geographic explorer Lee Berger on the mysteries of the ‘Cave of Bones’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsBTXHFoexI

CNN
'That just died': Paleoanthropologist debunks myth about humans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFj1KAaAUWM

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History with Kayleigh
Groundbreaking New Discoveries! Homo Naledi Burials & Engraved Cave Art

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4WsgMUtJTU

Our incredible origins: The astonishing tale of Homo naledi
Lee Berger helped unearth stunning fossils of ancient human relatives in Africa. He explains why we need to rewrite our family tree

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gspjzX0Pq3U

A mysterious human species may have been the first to bury their dead

If the claims are true, the behavior by Homo naledi—a baffling, small-brained member of the human family tree—would pre-date the earliest known burials by at least 100,000 years.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/scie ... =220257866

Open Science with Prof. Lee Berger

https://www.scinight.com/episodes/open- ... lee-berger

New Discovery in South Africa Unearths a New Chapter in Human Evolution

https://worldofpaleoanthropology.org/2023/06/05/2740/

Burials and engravings in a small-brained hominin, Homo naledi, from the late Pleistocene: contexts and evolutionary implications

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 135v1.full

Evidence for deliberate burial of the dead by Homo naledi

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 1.543127v1

Homo naledi may have made etchings on cave walls and buried its dead

https://www.newscientist.com/article/23 ... -its-dead/

UNKNOWN: Cave of Bones | Official Trailer | Netflix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=D85B4rVcFtk