Free to Bury their Dead & Write their Names

LEE BERGER — CAVE OF BONES — 2023

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE FREEDOM OF HOMININS

Who is Homo Naledi and what does he/she — of course, he/she, not “it” as Lee Berger often says, since he is part of our genus, hence a close relative of ours — represent in the Homo genus?

Naledi was discovered in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa in 2013. This very complex cave system is the only place where a great number of fossils were found in various chambers of the complex. Naledi was never found outside, but was he/she looked for outside? We do not know what life he/she had outside the caves. When Lee Berger says that Naledi could have had some sexual contact with Homo Sapiens who was starting to evolve close by, he has no proof at all, and it will take some time to be able to get Naledi’s DNA to see if it can be traced in Homo Sapiens’ DNA. So far, we could even consider Naledi is a caveman only living in the complete darkness of the caves as a nocturnal Hominin that would have nocturnal vision. But it is not sure at all since we are going to see that they had fire, and one chamber was used as a cooking area with bones from various small mammal species that live more or less exclusively on the surface of the earth.