News Anthropology

Homo naledi may have dug cave graves and carved marks into cave walls

The proposed discoveries of humanlike activities by the ancient hominids have drawn skepticism

An artist reconstruction of a grave holding several bones.

Disputed evidence from underground caves in South Africa suggests that the oldest known burials of the dead occurred among extinct, small-brained hominids. An artist’s reconstruction of one proposed grave holding the skeletal remains of an adult Homo naledi is shown here.

L. Berger et al/BioRxiv.org 2023

By Bruce Bower

An extinct, small-brained hominid known as Homo naledi intentionally buried its dead in two underground cave chambers 160,000 years or more before the earliest evidence of deliberate interments by Homo sapiens or Neandertals, researchers say.