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 Fossils of the creature were unearthed in a deep cave near the
famed sites of Sterkfontein and Swartkrans, treasure troves 50 km
(30 miles) northwest of Johannesburg that have yielded pieces of the
puzzle of human evolution for decades.
"It was right under our nose in the most explored valley of the
continent of Africa," said Lee Berger of the Evolutionary Studies
Institute at Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand.
The new species - described in the scientific journal eLife
(http://elifesciences.org/) - has been named 'Homo naledi', in honor
of the "Rising Star" cave where it was found. Naledi means "star" in
South Africa's Sesotho language.
Paleoanthropologists concluded it buried its dead - a trait
previously believed to be uniquely human - through a process of
deduction.
Africa's largest single collection of hominin (human and
human-related) fossils was made up of 15 individuals, from infants
to the elderly, pieced together from more than 1,500 fragments.
 Virtually no other remains from other species were found there and
the bones bore no claw or tooth marks - suggesting they were not the
leftovers from a predator's larder or death trap.
"It does appear after eliminating all other possibilities that Homo
naledi was deliberately disposing of its body in a repeated
fashion," Berger told Reuters in an interview.
"That indicates to us that they were seeing themselves as separate
from other animals and in fact perhaps from the natural world," he
added.
OF TOOLS AND CHIMPS
He set aside another theory that they may have been hiding their
dead deep underground, simply to keep off scavengers like the
long-legged hyena.
"They are only selecting their own dead. If they were doing that
they would put everything in it that would attract a predator or a
scavenger," he said.
This is not the first time that the study of our relatives, extinct
or living, has yielded evidence that humans do not have the monopoly
on certain kinds of behavior.
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Jane Goodall in 1960 famously observed chimpanzees, our closest
living relative, using grass stems for termite "fishing", the first
recorded use of a crude tool by non-humans.
Homo naledi, discovered in the cave in September 2013, had a brain
slightly larger than a chimpanzee's, but its age remains an enigma,
said Berger.
This is because the specimens found were deliberately taken to the
chamber, and so there are no rocks or sentiments under or overlaying
them, he added.
There are also no fossils with them from other animals that could
provide clues.
"But we can see from their physical morphology or appearance where
their species originates in time. If our present understanding is
correct, then that must be in excess of 2.5 million years," said
Berger.
The surrounding area is a U.N. World Heritage site, named the
"Cradle of Humankind" by the South African government because of its
rich collection of hominin fossils.
(Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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