The Astonishing Tale of Homo naledi and the Discovery That Changed Our Human Story
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Average rating4.5
This first-person narrative about an archaeological discovery is rewriting the story of human evolution. A story of defiance and determination by a controversial scientist, this is Lee Berger's own take on finding Homo naledi, an all-new species on the human family tree and one of the greatest discoveries of the 21st century. In 2013, Berger, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, caught wind of a cache of bones in a hard-to-reach underground cave in South Africa. He put out a call around the world for petite collaborators—men and women small and adventurous enough to be able to squeeze through 8-inch tunnels to reach a sunless cave 40 feet underground. With this team of "underground astronauts," Berger made the discovery of a lifetime: hundreds of prehistoric bones, including entire skeletons of at least 15 individuals, all perhaps two million years old. Their features combined those of known prehominids like Lucy, the famousAustralopithecus, with those more human than anything ever before seen in prehistoric remains. Berger's team had discovered an all new species, and they called it Homo naledi. The cave quickly proved to be the richest prehominid site ever discovered, full of implications that shake the very foundation of how we define what makes us human. Did this species come before, during, or after the emergence of Homo sapiens on our evolutionary tree? How did the cave come to contain nothing but the remains of these individuals? Did they bury their dead? If so, they must have had a level of self-knowledge, including an awareness of death. And yet those are the very characteristics used to define what makes us human. Did an equally advanced species inhabit Earth with us, or before us? Berger does not hesitate to address all these questions. Berger is a charming and controversial figure, and some colleagues question his interpretation of this and other finds. But in these pages, this charismatic and visionary paleontologist counters their arguments and tells his personal story: a rich and readable narrative about science, exploration, and what it means to be human.
Reviews with the most likes.
Discovered this after listening to a podcast episode on the mystery of how Homo Naledi ended up in the cave systems it was uncovered in in the first place, and finding it interesting.
Although it's said to be about the aforementioned species, only about half of this book covers that: in the first half Berger seems preoccupied with talking about his own achievements and his troubles with other scientists which, to me, read a lot like posturing, though talks about other finds are interesting.
Fortunately the last two sections are a very readable account of the discovery and recovery of the hominids found 30 meters underground in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa. It's really fascinating and details not just what was found but also the intensive and dangerous process of what actually getting scientists down into the cave entailed, as well as the lab workshops that ran afterward to categorise what was found.