JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA—The Guardian reports that the fossils of additional Homo naledi individuals have been found in the Rising Star Cave system, in a chamber some 300 feet away from the site were the first specimens were discovered in 2013. That brings the total number to at least 18 individuals, including the nearly complete skull of an adult. Homo naledi stood nearly five feet tall, weighed about 100 pounds, and had a small brain and curved fingers, but wrists, hands, legs, and feet resembling those of Neanderthals and modern humans. Lee Berger of the University of Witwatersrand said that the bones show few signs of stress or disease, which suggests Homo naledi may have been the dominant species in the area between 335,000 and 236,000 years ago—a time when Homo sapiens also lived in the region. Berger thinks stone tools attributed to modern humans may have been made by Homo naledi, although no tools have been found with the hominin fossils. He also speculates that they were able to control fire, since they were able to navigate the underground cave. “I think the discovery of this second chamber adds to the idea that Homo naledi deliberately disposed of its dead in the deep underground chambers of the Rising Star cave system,” he said. For more on Homo naledi, go to “A New Human Relative.”
