In late 2013, six slender scientists slid slowly through some small spaces, seeking scholastic satiation.

Sorry. I'll stop soon now. I might do it again later.

The scientists did have to be super skinny, that part is true. They're in Rising Star Cave, where a couple weeks prior, some cave explorers had discovered a 20cm wide chute that goes straight down into a chamber full of human looking bones. At first they'd thought, damn some poor sucker musta climbed back here and not been able to get out. Except, nah - the bones are actually fossilized. So they call the skinny scientists, come to find out the bones belong to a previously undiscovered species of archaic humans, Homo naledi. They lived 335,000–236,000 years ago. And there are sooo many bones. The science guys have only dug a couple square meters of the cave, preservation and all, but they've found the bones of at least 15 individuals. There are still more on site.

possibilities (kind of)

At first they thought there had to be a natural explanation, like flooding or predators. Cave hasn't been flooded though, and bones don't show usual signs of having been killed/eaten. No trauma resulting from accidentally falling down the shaft. It's almost impossible to get back there without light, which means control of fire, which means complex thought. So the most likely theory is the most exciting one. These remains were placed in the chamber on purpose. Technically, is still up in the air why and by who. Science dudes are hesitant to call it an intentional burial, but I feel like the simplest answer is usually the right one. Plus all the other theories so far haven't checked out.

AND just a few months ago, science guys did some testing on the teeth, all those tested came back female! Sex specific burial, I think that points very strongly towards intentionality.

Okay that might not sound very exciting to you but it's a big fkn deal. We used to think burial was unique to genetically modern humans or our closer relatives like neanderthals. Plus the oldest human grave we've found is only 100,000 years old. These guys were doing it almost 200,000 years before us (maybe - we may yet discover an older modern human grave, who knows).

stone etchings

On a later expedition, they found geometric marks carved into the cave walls, sort of near the chute entrance. It's still unclear who made them, the naledi or someone else. naledi were theoretically capable of using stone tools, but we haven't found any yet. This is my favorite part of the whole rabbit hole, I love cave art. A lot of the earliest human and neanderthal art looked more or less like this, just a bunch of cross hatching.

Here you can see panel A, there's a polarizing filter to help you see the marks a little better. Below, you can get some reference for how long/deep they are.

or not?

As of right now, there's no definitive proof that the denaledi were burying their own dead in a social or ritual sort of way. It is a pretty tall claim, in fairness. That the practice of burial predates modern humans by a couple hundred thousand years, and it was done by a previously unknown species of humans with very small brains. And also the small brained humans had control of fire. They made art, but no tools have ever been found not even as grave goods.

OR, maybe the tooth samples were incorrect, it's possible that naledi had different teeth proteins or whatever. We only think it's sex-specific, but there's all kinds of people down there with wildly different teeth than their cousins. That would remove one point away from intentionality.

hows it lookin, chief

eh, could go either way

There's one other slightly odd thing. The cave explorers who discovered the chute in late 2013, they said there was evidence "someone had already been there," perhaps as recently as a few decades back. Whoever it was left a few survey markers, 're-arranged' some of the bones, and left.

And yeah, apparently I'm the only person wondering what that's all about. The science dudes had to dig around to figure out which expedition could have left the little markers, they're pretty sure it's from a trip in the 1990s that was doing a survey? recreational? i can't remember. I couldn't tell if that meant they knew specifically who left the markers, or just that they have a vague record of someone going into the caves in the 90s.

Why did they leave the markers but never bother to tell anyone about the chamber. Isn't the point of survey markers to make navigation easier n measuring n mapping and general 'keeping track of?' Especially considering they found tiny humanish bones down there?? Which they apparently...rearranged? This was only briefly mentioned in the paper by the way, the science guys seemed mostly annoyed that the ground had been disturbed and bone fragments removed from their strata or whatever.

final thoughts

so the guy finds a mass grave of teen tiny bones...he 'rearranges' them...and leaves without ever telling a soul. Just weird. This woulda happened around the end of apartheid, all sorts of dangers and violence. He coulda mistook it for a child dumping ground, and thought damn maybe i shouldn't get mixed up in whatever this is. So he rearranges some of the bones to give em some semblance of a respectful grave marker, leaves, and never speaks of it again. It's late, I'm high, I think my imagination might be getting away from me a little. Sober Photon feels that this is actually a decent guess.

oh, about the cave? I wanna know what was special about the naledi buried, like what's the significance of them being all/mostly female. Do you think it would fuck up our collective psyche, if it turned out that we didn't invent burial we learned it from someone else. Probably not, too many of us are still convinced this whole motherfucker was made in six days.

aha, you thought i was gonna say seven, didn't you? you thought i was an uneducated heathen! well I am, but i've also read the bible. whole thing. don't believe the 'i'm reading the most fascinating book called the bible, i love this jesus fellow, i cant wait to see all the stuff he does for the rest of the new testament!' tropes that you get in anime and introspective dramas. The book is boring as shit. The next line of dialogue realistically shouldn't be "oh no jesus died!" its gonna be "hey, i think somethings wrong with my copy, the next 3 books are just different drafts of the same story." What can you say to him? Just skip forward to the end, that's where it really gets good?

sorry. got sidetracked. so..sleep?