In 2013 a couple of spelunkers, caving 100 feet underground in South Africa, wriggled down a narrow vertical chute. They dropped into an uncharted chamber and in the flickers of their headlamps saw human-like bones scattered across the ground. It was a new species of hominin.
The fortuitous discovery in the Rising Star Cave system led to one of the most spectacular and puzzling fossil collections in paleoanthropology. The chamber contained more than 1,550 skeletal pieces belonging to at least 15 individuals from a previously unknown human ancestor, Homo naledi. Dated between 230,000 and 330,000 years ago, the species’ relatively recent age and odd amalgamation of traits changes our understanding of human evolution.
Perilous Excavations
The H. naledi excavations got — and deserved — worldwide attention in part because they were so harrowing.
