In the Dinaledi Chamber of South Africa’s Rising Star cave system, scientists have made a groundbreaking discovery that could rewrite human history concerning the species Homo naledi.
According to Ancient Origins, during a lecture at the Carnegie Science Institute in New York, renowned paleoanthropologist Lee Berger from the University of Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa) announced that they have found “evidence of widespread fire use” in the Dinaledi Chamber, created by the cave’s inhabitants approximately 200,000 to 300,000 years ago.
The evidence indicates that this was controlled fire use—not merely burning something, but clearly for illumination and cooking.
The relatively clear skull of “ghost human” Homo naledi reconstructed from rare fragments of a child’s remains. The light brown parts are actual bones, while the black parts are substitute materials – (Photo: University of Witwatersrand)
This information is completely shocking, as there has been evidence suggesting that ancient hominins may have known about fire, but using it for cooking or more civilized activities was thought to come much later, when our species, Homo sapiens, evolved to a certain level.
However, this new discovery suggests that the kitchen of those living in the Dinaledi Chamber may have been in use long before Homo sapiens learned to control fire for these sophisticated purposes.
The estimated timeline for the onset of controlled fire use is around 230,000 years ago, based on analyses of cave sediments.
Even more astonishingly, they were not Homo sapiens, nor were they species considered to be evolved close to them, such as Neanderthals or Denisovans.
They were Homo naledi, whose evidence suggests a creature with a very small brain and a face resembling that of an ape. In other words, they are often viewed as a more primitive hominin rather than a human, despite being a member of the genus Homo.
The conclusions drawn stem from years of research, but Professor Berger’s team has been astounded since they first entered the Dinaledi Chamber seven years ago.
“When I looked up and stared at the cave ceiling, I began to realize that it was not pure calcium carbonate. The ceiling above me was gray, covered in layers of new rock. There were dark patches on the walls. Soot covered the entire surface,” he described.
The scientists have worked for seven years with various remains and adjacent rooms, finding more evidence of cooking activities. They even divided rooms for specific tasks. In the room designated for butchering animal remains, fire was lit, but it appeared not to be for cooking.
The research is ongoing, with a new skepticism that Homo naledi could have developed in a way very different from what we previously thought—since the image of a human with an ape-like face that we impose on them is based on very limited archaeological evidence.
Homo naledi is still considered a “ghost human” because, for most of the time that humanity has known and classified them, all the tangible evidence found has been very small and heavily damaged bone fragments.
The relatively clear skull of this “ghost human” has only recently been reconstructed from 28 bone fragments discovered by Professor Berger’s team in the Rising Star system, published in a 2021 study.
This ghostly species is thought to have emerged almost simultaneously with Homo sapiens but is considered a less developed member of the genus Homo. They seem to have coexisted rather than interbred with our ancestors, unlike Neanderthals or Denisovans.
