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Publications (213)
Objectives
Homo naledi is near the extreme of small brain size within Homo but is easily recognized as Homo in other aspects of endocast morphology. This study adds new evidence of the endocast morphology of H. naledi by describing the Lesedi Hominin 1 (LES1) endocranium from the Lesedi Chamber and compares it to the previously known H. naledi indi...
Background
Six Homo naledi early juveniles were recovered from U.W. 101 (Dinaledi Chamber), U.W. 102 (Lesedi Chamber), and U.W. 110 in the Rising Star cave system.
Aim
This paper develops the information for the H. naledi early juvenile life stage, as defined by a combination of deciduous and permanent dentition, and the eruption of the first perm...
A frequent source of debate in paleoanthropology concerns the taxonomic unity of fossil assemblages, with many hominin samples exhibiting elevated levels of variation that can be interpreted as indicating the presence of multiple species. By contrast, the large assemblage of hominin fossils from the Rising Star cave system, assigned to Homo naledi,...
A frequent source of debate in paleoanthropology concerns the taxonomic unity of fossil assemblages, with many hominin samples exhibiting elevated levels of variation that can be interpreted as indicating the presence of multiple species. By contrast, the large assemblage of hominin fossils from the Rising Star cave system, assigned to Homo naledi,...
Objectives
A modern pattern (rate and duration) of dental development occurs relatively recently during human evolution. Given the temporal overlap of Homo naledi with the first appearance of fossil Homo sapiens in Africa, this small‐bodied and small‐brained hominin presents an opportunity to elucidate the evolution of enamel growth in the hominin...
Data from recent explorations in the Dinaledi subsystem illustrates one of the earliest examples of a mortuary practice in hominins and offers the earliest evidence of multiple interments and funerary actions, as well as evidence of the early creation of meaning making by a hominin. The hominin undertaking these behaviors was the small-brained Homo...
The production of painted, etched or engraved designs on cave walls or other surfaces is recognized as a major cognitive step in human evolution. Such intentional designs, which are widely interpreted as signifying, recording, and transmitting information in a durable manner were once considered exclusive to Late Pleistocene Homo sapiens. Recent wo...
Recent excavations in the Rising Star Cave System of South Africa have revealed burials of the extinct hominin species Homo naledi. A combination of geological and anatomical evidence shows that hominins dug holes that disrupted the subsurface stratigraphy and interred the remains of H. naledi individuals, resulting in at least two discrete feature...
Recent excavations in the Rising Star Cave System of South Africa have revealed burials of the extinct hominin species Homo naledi. A combination of geological and anatomical evidence shows that hominins dug holes that disrupted the subsurface stratigraphy and interred the remains of H. naledi individuals, resulting in at least two discrete feature...
The production of painted, etched or engraved designs on cave walls or other surfaces is recognized as a major cognitive step in human evolution. Such intentional designs, which are widely interpreted as signifying, recording, and transmitting information in a durable manner were once considered exclusive to Late Pleistocene Homo sapiens. Recent wo...
Data from recent explorations in the Dinaledi subsystem illustrates one of the earliest examples of a mortuary practice in hominins and offers the earliest evidence of multiple interments and funerary actions, as well as evidence of the early creation of meaning making by a hominin. The hominin undertaking these behaviors was the small-brained Homo...
Data from recent explorations in the Dinaledi subsystem illustrates one of the earliest examples of a mortuary practice in hominins and offers the earliest evidence of multiple interments and funerary actions, as well as evidence of the early creation of meaning making by a hominin. The hominin undertaking these behaviors was the small-brained Homo...
The production of painted, etched or engraved designs on cave walls or other surfaces is recognized as a major cognitive step in human evolution. Such intentional designs, which are widely interpreted as signifying, recording, and transmitting information in a durable manner were once considered exclusive to Late Pleistocene Homo sapiens. Recent wo...
Recent excavations in the Rising Star Cave System of South Africa have revealed burials of the extinct hominin species Homo naledi. A combination of geological and anatomical evidence shows that hominins dug holes that disrupted the subsurface stratigraphy and interred the remains of H. naledi individuals, resulting in at least two discrete feature...
More than 150 hominin teeth, dated to ∼330-241 thousand years ago, were recovered during the 2013-2015 excavations of the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star cave system, South Africa. These fossils comprise the first large single-site sample of hominin teeth from the Middle Pleistocene of Africa. Though scattered remains attributable to Homo sapie...
In 1996, Grün and coworkers provided an ESR age determination for a hominin molar from Florisbad, South Africa, at 259 ± 35 ka. The most anatomically informative hominin specimen from Florisbad is a fragmentary craniofacial specimen, attributed by many to early Homo sapiens, which has been assumed to derive from the same individual as this tooth. S...
Objectives
In humans and known fossil hominins, lumbar lordosis is produced by vertebral body wedging and other bony and soft tissue features such as the shape of the intervertebral discs. Current techniques for quantifying the wedging of vertebral bodies are limited in utility, especially when analyzing incomplete fossil material. Here, we introdu...
Objectives
Homo naledi is represented by abundant remains from the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star Cave system in South Africa. While pelvic elements from the Dinaledi Chamber of the cave are fragmentary, a relatively complete ilium (U.W. 102a–138) was recovered from the Lesedi Chamber. We reconstructed and analyzed the Lesedi ilium, providing...
In their recent description of the Dmanisi endocrania, Ponce de Leon et al. suggested the Dmanisi hominins (attributed to Homo cf. erectus) were primitive in terms of the morphology of their inferior prefrontal cortex (IPF). This assertion was based on a proxy condition relating the brain’s superior precentral sulcus (PCS) relative to the position...
Adaptations of the lower back to bipedalism are frequently discussed but infrequently demonstrated in early fossil hominins. Newly discovered lumbar vertebrae contribute to a near-complete lower back of Malapa Hominin 2 (MH2), offering additional insights into posture and locomotion in Australopithecus sediba . We show that MH2 possessed a lower ba...
Our understanding of the evolution of the human thorax has largely improved during the last decade through the use of virtual anthropology and 3D geometric morphometrics. For example, recent research has produced 3D reconstructions of the thorax of adult and subadult Neanderthals [1,2], but also other fossil species such as Homo erectus [3]. In the...
Adaptations of the lower back to bipedalism are frequently discussed but infrequently demonstrated in early fossil hominins. Newly discovered lumbar vertebrae contribute to a near-complete lower back of Malapa Hominin 2 (MH2), offering additional insights into posture and locomotion in Australopithecus sediba. We show that MH2 demonstrates a lower...
Rising Star Cave in the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa, contains one of the richest hominin-bearing deposits in the world, and is the type locality for the Homo naledi fossils. This paper provides a stratigraphic and geochronological framework, within which published and future fossil finds from Rising Star Cave can be placed. Detailed mapping o...
Homo naledi, a recently discovered hominin species from the Rising Star cave complex in Gauteng Province, South Africa, is a surprising species in more ways than one. The conditions of accumulation, as well as the location of these remains in the cave are intriguing, as is their age of approximately 300,000 years. Likewise, the number of remains as...
Homo naledi displays a combination of features across the skeleton not found in any other hominin taxon, which has hindered attempts to determine its placement within the hominin clade. Using geometric morphometrics, we assess the morphology of the mandibular premolars of the species at the enamel-dentine junction (EDJ). Comparing with specimens of...
This study focuses on two early Pleistocene Australopithecus sediba hominin specimens and associated fauna from Malapa, South Africa. These specimens have been interpreted as having fallen through a shaft opening into a cave, where they died and likely mummified, before being washed into a lower chamber. In order to better understand the taphonomy...
The human lineage is marked by a transition in hand use, from locomotion towards increasingly dexterous manipulation, concomitant with bipedalism. The forceful precision grips used by modern humans probably evolved in the context of tool manufacture and use, but when and how many times hominin hands became principally manipulative remains unresolve...
Following the initial 2013 discovery of hominin fossils in the Rising Star Cave system in Cradle of Humankind, South Africa, excavations focused on an area within a ~5 x 8 m chamber subsequently named Dinaledi Chamber. While the majority of fossil material recovered in 2013 was from this chamber, scattered skeletal remains were collected from the s...
Immature remains are critical for understanding maturational processes in hominin species as well as for interpreting changes in ontogenetic development in hominin evolution. The study of these subjects is hindered by the fact that associated juvenile remains are extremely rare in the hominin fossil record. Here we describe an assemblage of immatur...
In 1996, Grün and coworkers provided an ESR age determination for a hominin molar from Florisbad, South Africa, at 259 ± 35 ka. The most anatomically informative hominin specimen from Florisbad is a fragmentary craniofacial specimen, attributed by many to early Homo sapiens, which has been assumed to derive from the same individual as this tooth. S...
The abundant femoral assemblage of Homo naledi found in the Dinaledi Chamber provides a unique opportunity to test hypotheses regarding the taxonomy, locomotion, and loading patterns of this species. Here we describe neck and shaft cross-sectional structure of all the femoral fossils recovered in the Dinaledi Chamber and compare them to a broad sam...
Objectives:
The femoral remains recovered from the Lesedi Chamber are among the most complete South African fossil hominin femora discovered to date and offer new and valuable insights into the anatomy and variation of the bone in Homo naledi. While the femur is one of the best represented postcranial elements in the H. naledi assemblage from the...
Prior to the recovery of Homo naledi from the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star Cave system, the Middle Pleistocene fossil record in Africa was particularly sparse. With the large sample size now available from Dinaledi, the opportunity exists to reassess taxonomically ambiguous teeth unearthed at the nearby site of Sterkfontein. Teeth recovered...
Homo naledi skeletal material described from the Dinaledi Chamber, Rising Star System, in the Cradle of Humankind , South Africa, includes upper limb material with remarkably ape-like morphology occurring in the context of a distinctly modern human-like lower limb, foot, and hand. Here we describe upper limb specimens from a new fossil hominin site...
Excavations in the Lesedi Chamber (U.W. 102) of the Rising Star cave system from 2013 to 2015 resulted in the recovery of 131 fossils representing at least three individuals attributed to Homo naledi. Hominin fossils were recovered from three collection areas within the Lesedi Chamber. A partial skull with near complete dentition (LES1) and an asso...
The DinalediVR virtual reality package aims to engage students and the public with paleoanthropology through themes of exploration and discovery and by highlighting the diversity of scientists and specializations contributing to the field. DinalediVR contributes to an open-access ethos where accessibility includes linguistic representation, reduced...
The lower back is adapted to mobility and stability across mammals and reflects posture and locomotion in the framework of a species’ evolutionary history. Upright bipedalism is one such positional behavior, and due to limited fossil evidence, disagreements exist as to when, how, and in what evolutionary context bipedalism evolved. Here, we describ...
The bones of the pectoral girdle and upper limb are well represented among the fossils thus far recovered from Malapa (Gauteng Province, South Africa). Malapa Hominin 2, a partial skeleton representing an adult female of Australopithecus sediba, preserves a largely complete right pectoral girdle and upper limb, including the most complete scapula y...
While the timing, duration, and nature of the shift is debated, human evolution ultimately involved an increase in body size relative to our Miocene ancestors, and a transition from a more arboreal to a more terrestrial way of life. This is reflected not only in the articular and muscular attachment morphology of the upper and lower limbs, but also...
Australopithecus sediba is known from two partial skeletons, Malapa Hominins 1 and 2 (MH1 and MH2), a juvenile male and an adult female, respectively. Forty-eight elements of the axial skeleton, including vertebrae, ribs, a sternum, and a sacrum, are known from MH1 and MH2. Here, we describe these ~2.0 Ma fossils and provide raw data and plots of s...
The Incudes of Homo naledi
This study describes three incudes recovered from the Dinaledi Chamber in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa. All three bones were recovered during sieving of excavated sediments and likely represent three Homo naledi individuals. Morphologically and metrically, the Dinaledi ossicles resemble those of chimpanzees and Paranthropus robustus...
The upper limb of Homo naledi has previously been described from fragmentary material discovered in the Dinaledi Chamber in the Rising Star cave system, Cradle of Humankind, South Africa. Recent work at Rising Star has led to the recovery of additional fossil material attributed to H. naledi from a new fossil site within the system called the Lesed...
A new species of Homo, Homo naledi, was described in 2015 based on the hominin skeletal remains from the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star cave system, South Africa. Subsequent craniodental comparative analyses, both phenetic and cladistic, served to support its taxonomic distinctiveness. Here we provide a new quantitative analysis, where up to 7...
The reported incidence of neoplasia in the extinct hominin record is rare. We describe here the first palaeopathological analysis of an osteogenic lesion in the extinct hominin Homo naledi from Dinaledi Cave (Rising Star), South Africa. The lesion presented as an irregular bony growth, found on the right lingual surface of the body of the adult man...
Significance
The new species Homo naledi was discovered in 2013 in a remote cave chamber of the Rising Star cave system, South Africa. This species survived until between 226,000 and 335,000 y ago, placing it in continental Africa at the same time as the early ancestors of modern humans were arising. Yet, H. naledi was strikingly primitive in many...
Perikymata, incremental growth lines visible on tooth enamel surfaces, differ in their distribution and number among hominin species, although with overlapping patterns. This study asks: (1) How does the distribution of perikymata along the lateral enamel surface of Homo naledi anterior teeth compare to that of other hominins? (2) When both perikym...
Objectives:
A recent study of dental chipping suggested that Homo naledi teeth were exposed to "acute trauma" on a regular basis during life, presumably from the consumption of grit-laden foods. This follows debate concerning the etiology of dental chips in South African hominin teeth that dates back more than half a century. Some have argued that...
Abstract The enigmatic Homo naledi has many special characteristics. This geologically recent species is characterized by a mosaic of derived and archaic characters. Today, 12 clavicles and 15 scapulas have been discovered, coming from the cave chambers Dinaledi (site 101) and Lesedi (also known as Site 102). The scapulas are very fragmentary and a...
In the hominin fossil record, pelvic remains are sparse and are difficult to attribute taxonomically when they are not directly associated with craniodental material. Here we describe the pelvic remains from the Dinaledi Chamber in the Rising Star cave system, Cradle of Humankind, South Africa, which has produced hominin fossils of a new species, H...
The Malapa site has yielded unusually abundant and well preserved fossils of Australopithecus sediba. While some elements were found in situ during excavation, others were recovered ex situ from blocks of clastic, calcified sediments collected around the site. We have refitted the ex situ elements from Facies D, the sedimentary unit represented by...
Postcranial measurements.
DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.24232.047
Canonical variates analysis of carpal morphology.
DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.24232.048
Traits of the LES1 cranium in comparison to H. naledi and other hominin species.
DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.24232.045
Cranial and mandibular measurements.
DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.24232.046
Taphonomic observations by specimen from the Lesedi Chamber.
DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.24232.049
ELife digest
Species of ancient humans and the extinct relatives of our ancestors are typically described from a limited number of fossils. However, this was not the case with Homo naledi. More than 1500 fossils representing at least 15 individuals of this species were unearthed from the Rising Star cave system in South Africa between 2013 and 2014...
ELife digest
Species of ancient humans and the extinct relatives of our ancestors are typically described from a limited number of fossils. However, this was not the case with Homo naledi. More than 1500 fossils representing at least 15 individuals of this species were unearthed from the Rising Star cave system in South Africa between 2013 and 2014...
ELife digest
Species of ancient humans and the extinct relatives of our ancestors are typically described from a limited number of fossils. However, this was not the case with Homo naledi. More than 1,500 fossils representing at least 15 individuals of this species were unearthed from the Rising Star cave system in South Africa between 2013 and 201...
Objectives:
In 2008, an immature hominin defined as the holotype of the new species Australopithecus sediba was discovered at the 1.9 million year old Malapa site in South Africa. The specimen (MH1) includes substantial post-cranial skeletal material, and provides a unique opportunity to assess its skeletal maturation.
Methods:
Skeletal maturity...
H. naledi shows a mosaic morphological pattern
with several derived (Homo-like) features of the
skull, hands and feet, and primitive (australopith-
like) features in the ribcage, shoulder, and
pelvis. This pattern reflects a morphology that
might be expected of a hominin at the evolutionary
transition between Australopithecus and
Homo. Two thoracic...
We present the first application of high-resolution micro computed tomography in an analysis of both the internal and external morphology of the lumbar region of StW 431 – a hominin skeleton recovered from Member 4 infill of the Sterkfontein Caves (South Africa) in 1987. The lumbar vertebrae of the individual present a number of proliferative and e...