Homo naledi and cultural behaviour

Rising Star cave system near Johannesburg in South Africa, the home of Homo naledi, a new hominin find, is a part of UNESCO World Heritage Site. It has yielded numerous fossil hominin ancestors and is considered to be the motherland of modern humans who had migrated in waves to inhabit all parts of the globe.

The credit for the discovery of Homo naledi find goes to Dr. Lee Berger, paleoanthropologist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence and his team of dedicated researches who explored these dangerous caves to collect fossils during the year 2013. A compilation of about 1500 fossil specimens from these caves came from at least 15 Homo nalediindividuals. The age of the fossils has been estimated to be between 335,000 and 236,000 years before present.Homo naledi had some morphological features common to humans as well as to Australopithecus. It walked upright, was short in size, and had asmall brain and a robust body built. The structure of hand and wrist bones indicated it could manipulate with hand and possessed manual dexterity. Shoulder bones were suitable for climbing and teeth shared features with Australopithecus.

One important aspect of the behavior of Homo naledi came to light that they buried their dead. Careful inspection and excavation of the cave system indicated that they deliberately placed the dead bodies in a curled position for their burial. This hypothesis startled the scientific community that how this very small-brained hominin couldhave developed this cultural trait. However some experts don’t agree with the deliberate burial theory and argue that the dead may have been later covered with sedimentations which may have looked like deliberate burials.Not only did Homo naledi bury their dead, but also made carvings and designs on the rocks nearby these graves. This indicated a complex behavioral trait of a hominin having about one-third of the brain size of modern humans.The scientists discovered an extensiveevidence of smoked rocks, ashes and charcoal along with pieces of burnt bones in the Rising Star cave system. This is an indication that Homo naledi developed the expertise of using fire. These complex cultural traits of a small-brained creature point towards a hypothesis that the traits are not the exclusive domain of a large brain size. Whatever the controversy about the cultural behavior of Homo naledi, more research findings are likely to uncover the truth behind it.