Our Human Cousins Weren't as Primitive as We Thought

Research suggests we were far more alike than we assumed

Hiya!

We, Homo sapiens, love comparing ourselves to our ancient humanoid cousins and habitually use the comparison to further stroke our egos as the dominant human species. We assume we must be far superior to the Neanderthals, who were thought of for a long time as grunting, knuckle-dragging, club-carrying dimwits who only ate meat and berries.

Now we know that’s far from the case. The last couple of decades has been ripe with discoveries about Neanderthals and even some of our other humanoid cousins. But instead of discovering unequivocal evidence to boost our egos, we’re finding more and more similarities between them and us, leading researchers to think that perhaps, we weren’t all that different after all.

Homo Naledi

Before we get to the Neanderthals, I want to discuss a different Human species. Experts discovered evidence of fires throughout its claustrophobia-inducing tunnel systems in a complex cave network known as the Rising Star near Johannesburg, South Africa. But it wasn’t our ancient ancestors or our cousins, the Neanderthals, responsible for the soot found in the tunnels — it was another Human species called Homo naledi who lived between 335,000 and 236,000 years ago.

Naledi’s feet were almost identical to ours, and their hands were similar too, but their shoulders, torsos, and faces were more ape-like. They also had smaller brains, though it’s believed they were shaped and functioned similarly to ours. Since their discovery, the Rising Star cave network has become “the largest collection of a single hominin species that have been found in Africa.”

Interestingly, however, no stone tools have been found at the site yet, leading some researchers to assume Naledi was too primitive. Meanwhile, others argue that’s not necessarily the case since their hands resembled ours they think it’s unlikely they didn’t use tools. At first, no animal fossils were found either, but that changed once they ventured further into the network of caves.

During excavations, Professor Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg who discovered the soot from ancient fires, had climbed to a difficult-to-reach area for the first time and found soot everywhere. In an article about the discovery, Berger described the experience:

“As I looked up and stared at the roof, I began to realise that the roof was not a pure calcium carbonate. The roof above my head was grey above fresh flowstone. There were blackened areas across the wall. There were soot particles across the whole of the surface. The entire roof of the chamber where we have spent the last seven years working is burnt and blackened,”:

Then the expedition’s co-director, Dr. Keneiloe Molopyane, found a small hearth with antelope bones — and nearby was a larger hearth. From there, the team discovered all sorts of charred animal bones and the leftovers of many fires throughout the tunnels, including burnt chunks of wood. It didn’t take long for them to realize the primitive assumptions about Homo naledi might be off track. In the same article, he states:

“Everywhere there’s a complex juncture, they built fire. Every adjacent cave system to the chambers where we believe they were disposing of the dead, they built fires and cooked animals. And in the chamber where we believe they were disposing of the dead, they built fire but didn’t cook animals. That’s extraordinary.”

Their next steps are to carbon date their finding and hope to confirm that H. naledi were the ones making these fires, which is likely, seeing as no other hominin fossils have been found at the Rising Star caves. If it was Naledi, then it shows they were more advanced than previously assumed. The lack of stone tools doesn’t necessarily mean they weren’t intelligent. Perhaps they used different materials.