What is going on with Homo naledi?

I plan on making a long form video on this topic soon, not only to update everyone on what is going on, as thee is a big conference going on right now in South Africa as I write this surrounding Homo naledi and its research. So there is more to come, and I want to explain the entire situation from start to finish.

For now, I want to say this about what has been said.

Homo naledi is an ancient hominin species, dating to around 300kya, found only in the Rising Star Cave System by Steven Tucker and Rick Hunter. Berger et al spent years excavating, being careful about their claims of what happened, being meticulous.  

Something very special is going on down in Rising Star, there is no doubt about that. Naledi was doing amazing things. But what were those things, and more importantly, what evidence do we have for them vs. narrative?wo

Less team claims they carved symbols on the walls, which we have seen supposed images of (and there are plenty more), and that they controlled fire (the least debatable), and that they even, in the literal sense, buried their dead ritualistically. 

Many former researchers on the #naledi team think that purposeful mortuary practice was done here, and that bodies were potentially ‘placed’ in certain areas, as the fact that all dentition belongs to one sex is very meaningful. It means a lot. But what? 

Even if Naledi did not do all the things the team is claiming, or at least not in the same way, and we will not know until more empirical work is done (which is being done now, I can assure you), we will know no more. Until then, no, Naledi did not ‘bury’ their dead.

The tale of Homo naledi will go on for many decades, I am sure, and it is our duty to report on what is going on from all sides, to inform the public, to pull back misconceptions, and inform on new truths. That’s the way forward. 

On August 7th, I am hosting three researchers who have looked at the  data and concluded that there was not proper evidence to support a true burial. Placement, however, as we see with #Leti and #Neo, is a different story. #RisingStar is an amazing site. No need for fluff. 

This does not excuse the poor way in which the science was done, or shown off to the public, and there is no excuse for firing fossils off into space as Berger did, but as far as the actual site goes, all egos taken out of it, there is so much to discover and learn.

If one were to ask me, out of all the things that were going on, we have a species that was navigating these caves, doing something, somehow, for some purpose. They didn’t just end up there. We know that. So now the question is how and why.

Will we ever have adequate answers? Not as long as the peer review process is skirted by the team, having their papers rejected by respected journals so they could “publish preprints” for the public for comment prior to revisions or peer review, giving the public a false idea of what was going on, not to mention the awful Netflix documentary, that I can only recommend if you want to see what it’s like in Rising Star – for that it’s great.

Time will tell how much of this is snake oil, and how much is the largest paleoanthropological discovery of the century!