It is really great to hear intelligent, smart (not the same thing) have an open discussion about a fascinating subject. I also think I am hearing another version of the question, "Is Pluto a planet?"

I'm just your average never-grew-up-from-liking-dinosaurs paleo nerd, but I wanted to say how thrilled I am to see new things appearing about Homo Naledi. There was a talk by John Hawks on KZfaq, appearing this year iirc, which turned out to have been given in 2017 ☹ So I'm eagerly awaiting the details about use of fire in Rising Star Cave, and whatever else Naledi got up to...

so I'm getting a vide that they are confident in their ability to get molecular Genetic data out of Naledi, and that is making me sooooo excited. wow i really hope that is the case i want so badly for us to get an entire new subset of genetic data in the molecular tree, their genes could help us accurately place the clock more exactly on key genes for various features and factors across the spectrum of traits.

Having a team that does not believe in the same idea is a GREAT situation. As long as the members can have constructive disagreements. We need to think outside the box but, look for facts.

Re the anatomy of Homo naledi. I am sure that somebody has remarked that a small head size, gracile limbs and high set shoulder girdle makes the anatomy of Homo naledi extremely well suited to the environment in which it lived, specifically the cave system in which it has been found.

It would be fantastic if the "soil" on the cave could be analyzed to tell us more about the organic things that were placed in the cave.

As a microbiologist, I find the discussion over whether something fits one genus or another quite banal. Many, many times, when I was identifying a bacterial culture, the database would say something like (and don't quote me) "This bug is 70% likely to be an E. coli and 20% likely to be a Klebsiella aerogenes and 10% likely to be a Proteus mirabilis". This is because there are so many characteristics that have been interchanged between clades or evolutionary lines and there are no distinct dividers between species or even genera. Surely the same applies to fossils. The genus name doesn't matter, except as an identifier! In fact, it is a meaningless concept. Perhaps you should just say things like naledi is "70% homo and 30% ape" and leave it at that.

Your profound honesty is greatly appreciated by me. Official inertia is understandable. Updating all too comfortable academics and their teaching tools is a formidable undertaking let alone recognizing new theories and faces with frequency that they might occur. I remember having to watch the alien theorists, as narrow as the academics, to find out what existed and frequently impossible to explain. Gradually newer recognized archeologists and geologists as well as the undeniable proof of places like Gobekli Tepe has forced some official recognition. There are defenders of established dogma that will attack a newer theory while avoiding the obvious existence or presence of the unexplainable. A simple example is an attack on alien theory without acknowledging the physical conundrum that caused the issue and clearly exists. Thank you so much for your efforts

Rhetorical Question: Naledi almost certainly had some sort of language.... Did they have enough language that they would be able to explain their inner thoughts to a human interviewing them? If so they definitely count as people, even if they don't quite count as human.

What a treat to have such a gathering of brilliant minds. Naledi has given us so much to think about!

so the interesting thing is 'if the fossils of homo Naledi had not been found we would have never known this species existed and our view of human history would be quite different. This has always been the case with paleontology, every time a 'new' discovery is made scientists have to rethink our origins and it is much more complicated than thought. If only one fossil of Naledi had been found and accurate dating was not available what then would have been the conclusions. Up till now the age of the fossil has been the most determining factor but Naledi has blown that belief away and the fact so many fossils have been found it is impossible to miscategorize it. So the question then is what else is there to be discovered or better yet what may never be discovered? It is evident that we only find fossils in places where we can find them so who knows what lies beneath inaccessible places and how many hominids lived in places where bones cannot be fossilized. Seems as if we always try to tell the whole story when we only know a very small part of it. The story of how humans have been so sure of our ancestor's origins is almost as interesting as the fossils themselves. It's just so human to be so sure because the human mind (like nature) abhors a vacuum

It stagers the imagination that Naledi used fire and buried their dead

Evolution is evolving ;-) I think the upright pithecine ancestor of Sapien (Africa), Neanderthal (Europe), and Denisovan (Asia) evolved OUTSIDE of Africa, either in southeastern Europe or somewhere in ANE, and that this is why, via migration in all directions, it further evolved into not one but three separate [and yet compatible] species of homo. Neanderthals and Denisovans interfaced along the border of their separate domains long before Sapiens migrated out of Africa. But Sapiens, by far the superior of the three, not only in terms of capability but, BECAUSE of that capability, also in terms of sheer numbers, proved dominant, which is why the apparent assimilation [with the other two species] is as lopsided as it is. At the same time, elsewhere, all over the planet, various upright pithecines evolved into entirely OTHER versions of homo, that is, in places that involve zero contact with Sapien, Neanderthal, OR Denisovan. Naledi is likely a fine example of this. If we're able to construct its genome, it may well prove to resemble Sapien almost none at all. But even on the off chance Naledi DOES turn out to represent a branch or sub-branch of the very pithecine that migrated INTO Africa and evolved INTO Sapien, already there are other clear examples of this larger paradigm, to wit, Luzon and Flores. These are homos who evolved fully independently. Luzon and Flores didn't "arrive" on their respective islands, that is, in some way that involved having mastered the ability to navigate the seas. They didn't "migrate" there. They evolved there. They evolved there from whatever upright pithecines inhabited THOSE environments, cut off from all else, just as ANY homos evolved from ANY pithecines anywhere else. We don't get to say that the process which produced us ISN'T a process or, that is, "IS a process which could ONLY have produced us and our compatible co-species." The process either works, or it doesn't, and if it does, it works anywhere. We need to broaden our thinking on that. In fact, the only reason I say Sapien, Neanderthal, and Denisovan evidently SHARE the same ancestor, rather than having evolved from three distinct pithecines, is the fact that this compatibility has been PROVEN and, that is, because I don't "take it as given" that evolving FROM separate pithecines would even ALLOW for interbreeding. Or, stated alternately, I don't know that Sapien today could successfully breed with Flores, for example, if the latter had NOT gone extinct. Morphological similarity among various species of homo comes with no known guarantee of interbreedability, at least not in cases where they evolved from alternate pithecines ...and maybe not even always when they evolved from the SAME pithecine. Too, behavioral similarity means literally nothing. If and where upright pithecine goes to homo, it simply has to be the case that it leads to "common" behavioral outcomes over time. That behavioral similarities equate as linkages is no less a red herring than morphology. Evolution by definition guarantees these ghost linkages. If not, every plant that yields seeds would have to be imagined having arisen from a single, seed-yielding parent. No. It is the mechanism, not the source, that is shared in common. Process, not parent. The evolution of "man" happened everywhere. We're just its only surviving remnant, that is, with the exception of the extent to which former samples live on IN us, as part of us. EDIT: To be clear, I wouldn't want the reader to think I'm ignoring the fact that several extant primates, to whom we're so clearly related, register as indigenous to Africa, giving thus the appearance that Sapien, Neanderthal, and Denisovan must have originated in Africa as well. It's just that I do not think the evidence supports the claim that the apes OF Africa originated there. What I think is, 1) that the immediate ancestor of all apes as we know them is also the immediate or near-immediate ancestor of the upright pithecine from whom Sapien, Neanderthal, and Denisovan evolved, 2) that the severity of the Pleistocene caused this ancestor of all apes as we know them AND a large segment of our upright pithecine ancestor clade to migrate down INTO Africa, just as evidenced by the fact that the lesser apes (gibbons and siamangs) can be seen to be the product of migration down into South Asia, 3) that a lesser portion of our upright pithecine ancestor clade did NOT migrate south but, instead, adapted to the new conditions and evolved into the two distinct branches of homo we've so successfully identified as Neanderthal and Denisovan, 4) that another portion of our upright pithecine ancestor clade likely migrated south (also) into ASIA, producing an additional species of homo, related to us, in due course, and 5) that any other migrations of any other portion of our upright pithecine ancestor clade in any OTHER directions, likely ALSO would have produced additional species of homo, related to us, in due course. If we do not allow of this, then in principle we migrate both Neanderthal and Denisovan north, OUT of Africa, pre-Pleistocene, in a manner which somehow insensibly manages to leave no trace of them behind IN Africa. If not, alternately, we in principle migrate a portion of our shared upright pithecine ancestor clade north out of Africa, before it evolved INTO any species of homo, and yet do so without any explanation for what possibly may have given rise TO that impulse. So while yes, as by tradition, at least in theory, we can entertain a model where a portion of our shared upright pithecine ancestor clade migrated out of Africa quite early, evolving into Neanderthal and Denisovan elsewhere, and evolving into Sapien back in Africa, that model fails to account for some important and unavoidable things. It does not account for how it is that the fourth large primate to whom we're also provenly related (the orangutan) is neither IN nor FROM Africa, but whose habitat is limited to the islands of Borneo and Sumatra (once connected to the mainland). Only a seminal migration from N to SSW and SSE can account for the largely shared DNA profile among all three homos, both Lesser Apes, and all four of the Great Apes. In any event, the main thing is as follows, because it addresses the even larger problem left unanswered by a purely African origin model. The question of human evolution not possibly is limited to a matter of "from whence came primates." The reason for this, is it does not account for what it is that gave rise to what gave RISE to primates in the first place. In other words, our evolution, and the evolution we share WITH other primates, absolutely has to be understood in terms of what it is that gave rise TO primates before ever there even WERE primates. Once viewed through that lens, only THEN can one comprehend how a species of homo possibly could evolve on the kind of island (namely Flores) that is known to have never been connected to the mainland. Whatever process gave rise to primates ANYWHERE, gave rise to primates there, just as whatever mechanism allowed primates to evolve into pitheci and homos in that order, is a mechanism that allowed it there as well. So, while this is not to say that whatever gave rise to primates "anywhere" could not also have been in operation on the African continent, and is equally not to say that whatever mechanism allowed primates "anywhere" to evolve into pitheci and homos could not have been in play there too, it is only to say that, no, THESE primates did not evolve there. If primates could evolve fully independently on Flores, obviously primates could (and most certainly did) evolve in Africa. I'm not saying or suggesting they did not. But that's very different from saying that THESE primates ORIGINATED in Africa and that, accordingly, any of the world's pitheci and/or homos did too. Such a notion is enormously unsustainable. Already the evidence has grown overwhelming that a great deal of evolutionary process, involving primates, occurred well away the confines of the African continent. And it's not really that big of a leap of the imagination to think that the extant primates OF Africa, as well as the ancestor we and they share in common, can trace their beginnings beyond its borders. It is equally and by no means unimaginable that, fully independent of THESE primates, Africa produced its OWN now fully extinct ones, and that they in turn, yes, produced their OWN pitheci and homos in that order, also extinct, for which evidence can materialize (and likely has), and yet which knows zero connection to any of the primates to whom WE are related. We make an error in logic if we assume that all the primates of Africa, extant or otherwise, are related, just as we err to assume that all homos are [related] worldwide. We need, I think, to understand that nothing within the realm of natural law could have kept primates from "coming into existence," fully independently, anywhere on the planet, with no need for the one to be a cause of the other, and that because of this any instances of pitheci and homos in that order could have evolved in ways entirely unrelated to one another. The nature of evolution is that it can be expected to randomly produce quite similar "starting points," and then based simply on that similarity produce similar outcomes. All similar outcomes need not have a same source. As I say, I doubt that even all of Africa's homos are related, because I doubt they're related to us any more than Homo floresiensis is. I think we're in for a big surprise.

Yes please. Decentralize us and look at the overall interactions of life at that time.

With all those years and pounds/dollars/pesos/beans spent researching can't we do any better than merely imagining it? What has come from all the blood, sweat and tears expended by the researchers? Simply something imagined ?

Re: being human. I think we need two different inclusions of various species as 'human'. One is 'they are not outside of being human', and the other is 'these are clearly included in humanity'. A species like Naledi might be in the 'not outside of being human' category, and not in the 'clearly human' category. Over the last century or two we've come to realize that we should have more respect for the autonomy of the apes than we do for mice or crickets, the categorization of which species is 'human' is sort of the same - Naledi would probably be seen as 'more like people' than the apes are, but not as much 'like people' as the Neanderthals are.

7 (seven) Considerations for two simple questions. Whereas (1) THAT, in a rare event, several fossils were found gathered in the same place; (2) THAT, these fossils are of individuals with ages ranging from months (infant) to mature age; (3) THAT these individuals appear to have died at the same time; (4) THAT there are no traces of food or hunting utensils/tools - nor of routine use of fire, although the place is very dark; (5) THAT the site is difficult to access even for small individuals, being difficult to go down to the lower chambers of the cave; (6) that exit from the site must be via the entry point; (7) that transporting adult corpses through the narrow labyrinth would be especially trying. I ASK: Wouldn't these individuals belong to a group (complete family, with adults, young people and children) that, in a hurry, sought refuge in the depths of the cave when fleeing from a pursuer who, in turn, had the means to understand the situation and set up guard for days or weeks, until it kills the refugees with thirst and hunger? Could the stalker be sapiens?

we have a hard time just defining "life" it can't be that much easier defining the line between "ape" or "pre-historic man" and "people". i was wondering, were these folks not claustrophobic, or was what they were sheltering from something they were more afraid of?

About that 'decentering' at the end of the session: unlike astronomy, which decentered us from our physical place in the universe, anthropology is ... the study of us. One can study lemurs till the lemurs come home, and if the effort somehow decenters us, then so be it. But what is anthropology if not the extended study of our own history. Is there not a legitimate divide between zoology and anthropology? We can study side branchs of the human family tree, and gain knowledge while doing so, but surely we can recognize the fundamental distinction between ancestors and non-ancestral relatives. Decentering - and other such jargon - can only be done rationally if we really aren't at the center. And if the science is the study of us, then how do you decenter us and keep the science? I can't make sense out of decentering myself out of my own geneology.

I think what the conversation perhaps needs to evolve into is one where intelligence is respected across species and the former anthropocentric paradigm of what is human is diversified. We don't have difficulty respecting elephants mourning or pigeons being able to carry messages (there are great numbers of examples like these). Can't we be big enough to respect the various intelligences of the other bipeds in our family tree? Isn't it arrogant to hold ourselves superior when we cannot seem to fully embrace our own 'humanity' by caring for current populations and the planet? Maybe it's best we consider all, for whatever we find out, and discontinue the futile quest to separate ourselves from other life. Clearly life is better when one can respect other specie, and better with our own. I'm way more fascinated with what the etchings of Naledi and Neanderthal are about than the disharmonious conduct of many modern humans right now. We know Jane Goodall had relevant communication with chimps, so obviously there are bound to be relatives in our family tree that we could relate to cognitively and emotionally. Maybe Naledi is a bridge... or if not perhaps they serve as one by preparing us to improve our paradigm. If we are at a place of expanding exploration, let's do it with our best selves... treat each other well and keep open minds, constantly checking ourselves to not revert to past errors.

Naledi began with nothing and gradually added things to meet the requirements of the narrative.

Delicious...

Why is the Homo naledi site promoted as the Cradle of Humankind?

Naledi is a verboten word on some subreddits

Interesting, so this if before the big blow-up on "culture" claims.

Donkeys and zebras are not horses.

When we were mixing and mingling in Eurasia with the locals.. Neanderthal etc.. we know that Africans were doing the same thing. Early modern humans (Jebel Irhoud) WERE In Africa at that time.. This isnt had to figure out here.. sakes.

I have a question. Was their cave like that while they were alive? I just got done watching the dude that discovered these talk about crawling through a hole that was 7 inches wide. What kind of burrowing chuds were these?

Define ‘cave people’! Cavewomen & men developed into folk who built their own ‘cave substitutes’. Did Naledi-folk live in caves or cave entrances or did they just use them as catacombs? Are we humans alive today ‘post-cavepeople’?

The hypothesis that Neledi cave is not much is error erroneous of a high kind. The height of intelligence and intellectual abilities were always passed down history. All forms of higher education were primitive but present. I am indigenous and can see that cave as what it is. That was the ancestor religious burial era of the greatest. The burial area may be cursed at Africa Naledi for being disturbed, no doubt you heard that before. But, discuss the fact the cave is rebirth and Afterlife belief of ancestors see one another later. They made the area the size of 700k years, you can find that math easily. That is a late Denisovan of Africa. Those are inside the afterlife chamber where birth happens to say the story at the end with each in between age stating the ancestors who went before bringing and leaving and coming again with all these who are preborn. Ancients were first to know they are children of the area Space. The chamber is space a conflation at the end and from a small life came older and older. Naledi family is last so for hurt they all wanted to die together in the ceremony. Now you can dad the feast of the religious ceremony there is a full story on the shelf stating the shelf story of physics. Yes, ancients all knew physics by reading acts of natural events.📣📣📣📣📣📣📣📣📣📣📣📣📣📣🔔🔔🔔🔔🔔🀄️

Hypothesis is the correct word. All to often I hear "professors" incorrectly use the "theory" and I either just loose the little respect I had for them... or I get angry just because I had so much respect and have to think about my "worldview" with the "fact" in mind that I can not trust a single word the professional has said up till now. As everyone here should know, the word Hypothesis is a compound of 2 greek words "hypo" and "thesis" I think that everyone should know the meaning of those two words... The former is "less than" or "under" the later word is "thesis" something that most if not all must have written at one time or another. What so many "laymen" have willy nilly called "my theory..." is at most an "unclear" idea not even a part of a hypothesis. Should professions as archaeologists talk together about deciding on new concepts to use when talking about things that nobody has the means to proof? When we can not make experiments and redo the experiments others have done... can we every speak about "theroy" knowing it is the correct concept to use? We know these individual did exist at some point in the past... but were they all the same species or do they represent many different species. Every human being alive today is a member of a single species. There is only a single human species today... was there ever any more than that?

The fires may be made by us only to smoke out the prey.

😆 𝕡𝐫ｏ𝕄ｏ𝔰𝓶

Correct, they are NOT human. Neither are Neanderthals or Denisovans.. If you want to know what is human.. ask yourself this one thing.. Would you put a ring on it. Its pretty clear.

All these human like species started from where and from who, certainly not from primates