An historical hominid dubbed Homo naledi could have lit managed fires within the pitch-dark chambers of an underground cave system, new discoveries trace.
Researchers have discovered remnants of small fireplaces and sooty wall and ceiling smudges in passages and chambers all through South Africa’s Rising Star cave complicated, paleoanthropologist Lee Berger introduced in a December 1 lecture hosted by the Carnegie Institution of Science in Washington, D.C.
“Signs of fire use are everywhere in this cave system,” mentioned Berger, of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
H. naledi presumably lit the blazes within the caves since stays of no different hominids have turned up there, the group says. But the researchers have but up to now the age of the hearth stays. And researchers exterior Berger’s group have but to guage the brand new finds.
H. naledi fossils date to between 335,000 and 236,000 years in the past (SN: 5/9/17), across the time Homo sapiens originated (SN: 6/7/17). Many researchers suspect that common use of fireside by hominids for mild, heat and cooking started roughly 400,000 years in the past (SN: 4/2/12).
Such conduct has not been attributed to H. naledi earlier than, largely due to its small mind. But it’s now clear {that a} mind roughly one-third the dimensions of human brains at this time nonetheless enabled H. naledi to attain management of fireside, Berger contends.
Last August, Berger climbed down a slender shaft and examined two underground chambers the place H. naledi fossils had been discovered. He seen stalactites and skinny rock sheets that had partly grown over older ceiling surfaces. Those surfaces displayed blackened, burned areas and had been additionally dotted by what gave the impression to be soot particles, Berger mentioned.
Meanwhile, expedition codirector and Wits paleoanthropologist Keneiloe Molopyane led excavations of a close-by cave chamber. There, the researchers uncovered two small fireplaces containing charred bits of wooden, and burned bones of antelopes and different animals. Remains of a fireside and close by burned animal bones had been then found in a extra distant cave chamber the place H. naledi fossils have been discovered.
Still, the primary problem for investigators will probably be up to now the burned wooden and bones and different hearth stays from the Rising Star chambers and exhibit that the fireplaces there come from the identical sediment layers as H. naledi fossils, says paleoanthropologist W. Andrew Barr of George Washington University in Washington, D.C., who wasn’t concerned within the work.
“That’s an absolutely critical first step before it will be possible to speculate about who may have made fires for what reason,” Barr says.