Professor Lee Berger holds a replica of the skull of Homo Naledi (Image: Getty)
The lost world in which lived has excited and dumbfounded scientists and archaeologists in equal measure for decades.
Over the years, discoveries of the remains of ancient humans different to the genus have slowly picked apart the mysterious web that our species is made up of.
Scientists came closer to understanding this complex puzzle after a group of archaeologists, while exploring a remote South African cave, happened upon the remains of Homo naledi.
This extinct hominin species, which is part of the Homo family tree, is distinct from modern humans, with its remains found around 12 meters beyond the Dinaledi Chamber in the .
The cave system itself is a 2km-long network of passageways, and it was here that the first Homo naledi fossils were uncovered.
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Professor Lee Berger pictured inside the Rising Star cave system in South Africa (Image: Getty)
The skull, found in 2015, is believed to belong to a child aged between four and six, who passed away nearly 250,000 years ago.
Professor Lee Berger, the project’s leader and Director of the at Wits University, shared his thoughts on the breakthrough. “Homo naledi remains one of the most enigmatic ancient human relatives ever discovered,” said Prof Berger.
“It is clearly a primitive species, existing at a time when previously we thought only modern humans were in Africa. Its very presence at that time and in this place complexifies our understanding of who did what first concerning the invention of complex stone tool cultures and even ritual practices.”
The newly found skull was named “Leti,” which translates to “the lost one” in Setswana, one of South Africa’s official languages. It was painstakingly reconstructed from 28 skull fragments and six teeth, and it joins almost 2,000 other fragments from more than 20 Homo naledi individuals discovered since 2013 in the Rising Star cave.
John Hawkins, a biological anthropologist and lead author of a prior study on a male Homo naledi skeleton known as “Neo,” commented, “This makes this the richest site for fossil hominins on the continent of Africa and makes naledi one of the best-known ancient hominin species ever discovered.”
The discovery of Leti was made in a narrow passageway just 15 by 80 centimeters in size, making it incredibly difficult to reach. Though the skull was found in multiple pieces, no clear signs of injury were observed, preventing researchers from speculating on the cause of death.
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A reproduction of the skull of Homo Naledi in the Centre for Exploration of the Deep Human Journey (Image: Getty)
There’s no evidence that the skull was damaged by carnivores or scavengers, nor that it was carried into the passage by water. This suggests that other Homo naledi members might have transported it to the remote location.
Prof Berger remarked: “The discovery of a single skull of a child, in such a remote location within the cave system, adds mystery as to how these many remains came to be in these remote, dark spaces of the Rising Star Cave system. It is just another riddle among many that surround this fascinating extinct human relative.”
The research team plans to continue exploring the Rising Star cave system in the hopes of further uncovering information about whether these chambers may have served as a burial ground for Homo naledi.
Professor Berger previously recounted how his team first ventured into the system to the , explaining that he had yet to explore many passageways. After hearing rumours of human remains in one passage, he went to investigate, only to be astounded by what he found.
“I was speechless,” he said. “There I saw something I thought I would never see in my entire career, there was a clearly primitive hominid just lying there on the surface in the dirt.” This discovery led to the excavation of bones from 15 separate skeletons, shedding new light on the history of Homo naledi and its role in human evolution.