Category: Palaeoscience

In the dark and humid Dinaledi Chamber at the Cradle of Humankind, dozens – possibly hundreds – of fossils are still undisturbed. This week, National Geographic explorer-in-residence and Wits University professor Lee Berger announced the discovery of 15 individuals, which his team of international scientists claim is a new species, Homo naledi, that were deposited…

A “man” stands naked in the centre of the studio. In the dim light cast from a lamp on a nearby table, you can see the threads of muscles running down his arms and cording up his legs. But something is wrong: his chest does not expand with air, he does not shift his balance,…

They moved the bodies in one at a time, from the old with their worn teeth to newborn babies. If they had been modern humans, the Dinaledi Chamber would have been called a burial site. But the creatures are not human. Homo naledi (“naledi” means star in the local Sotho language) is a new species…