Experts have discovered Homo Naledi, a new human-like species. The remains of 15 skeletons have been found secreted deep in a cave system in South
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Experts have discovered Homo Naledi, a new human-like species.
The remains of 15 skeletons have been found secreted deep in a cave system in South Africa.
Experts are excited by the find, not least because they say it is evidence of ritual behaviour and symbolic thought previously only found in Homo Sapiens.
“The idea that we recognised our own mortality and other self and that we would go to great effort to remove friends, relatives and even the un-related bodies from the external environment and place them away from that world: we saw ourselves as different. We have now seen, we believe, a species that had that same capacity.” said Wits University Professor Lee Berger.
The bones were found hidden in a tiny chamber in the Rising Star cave, an area known as the “Cradle of Mankind”.
It is thought it may have been used for burials.
The skeletons, which are both male and female, young, middle-aged and elderly, could be up to three million years old.
Experts are divided, though, on whether the new discovery can be described as a primitive human.