'I almost died on the way out,' said the six-foot-two tall archeologist who lost 25 kgs to enter a 17.5-centimeter cave.
Homo naledi lived approximately 230,000 years ago, averaging 144 centimeters in height and 40 kilograms in weight, according to the new findings.
Due to the narrow passes, only 47 persons, all of whom were little and thinly built, had been able to enter the Dinaledi chamber, where the first Homo nalediBerger, who is 188 cm tall, decided to take a chance and enter the labyrinth in August of this year after reducing 25 kg of weight. Berger noticed that the granite in the Dinaledi chamber had some darkened spots and soot flecks when he glanced up.Keneiloe Molopyane, a colleague of Berger's at the University of the Witwatersrand, discovered a huge hearth next to a smaller hearth with burned antelope bones 15 cm below the cave floor at the same time while Berger was still analyzing the ashes.
"The capacity to make and use fire finally shows us how Homo naledi ventured so deep into dangerous spaces, and explains how they may have moved their dead kin into such spaces, something likely impossible without light. It also hints at a complex naledi culture becoming visible to us." added Berger, who has allegedly disregarded scientific tradition by not reporting the findings first in a peer-reviewed journal.
The discovery, however, may have provided Francesco d'Errico from the University of Bordeaux in France with information about how they handled their dead and how their society was structured. If these small-brained, largely ape-like humans were capable of the sophisticated thought processes necessary to create and manage fire, then "we're beginning to see the emergence of a cultural pathway and behavior that we thought, until this moment, was the domain of [Homo sapiens and Neanderthals]," he said.
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