Lee Berger and associates have mentioned that the excavated all fossils from the cave floor and nothing came from the cave roof. They call it Homo naledi, but you called it Au naledi, why?

I agree with Anek. According to the geological/context findings, there is no indication that they eroded from the ceiling.

For further info, check the link bellow.

Best,

Claudia

Thanks a lot, Anek. Yes, all fossils come from the cave floor, but yesterday I read this:

I> "I am a member of the club who made the discovery of the Naledi Fossil ... The cave itself has been known to us and visited frequently for as long as I have been a member of the club.  It has indeed been well surveyed and what initially started as 3 different cave systems were all eventually interconnected to create one large system.  The fossils were discovered in a section known as the Dragon's Back. This section was visited and surveyed and has never seen visitors since the survey was first created (I stand to be corrected but I believe 1980s).  A new adventurous member of the club - Steven - set out to re-explore the cave.  His visit to the chamber was met with the discovery of the first mandible which had collapsed from the breccia above. It was more a matter of good luck and 20 years of nature's impact that led to the discovery ..."

"Collapsed from the breccia above": could more fossils have fallen?

The morphology doesn't lie: the combination of curved hand bones & humanlike feet is best (only?) explained by aquarborealism, like lowland gorillas regularly & bonobos occasionally do, wading for AHV. That means that when they died, their bodies got amlost immediately covered with mud (oxygen-poor, preservation of remarkably complete fossils). But I'm no geologist, I don't know exactly how the fossils ended up in the cave.

Australopithecus, not Homo naledi, yes: everything on naledi is chimp/ape/australopith-like: the humanlike feet are primitive for hominids (sensu Pan-Homo-Gorilla + fossil relatives): comparative as well as embryological data suggest that both Gorilla & Pan had more bipedal ancestors + flat plantigrade more-human-like feet (wading, google researchGate marc verhaegen).

Thanks, Claudia, I don't know how exactly the fossils got into the cave. The morphology however is clear. These fossils were not unexpected, but in fact predicted (e.g. Trends Ecol Evol 17:212-7, 2002, google "aquarboreal"). Prof Berger’s interpretations are anthropocentric: naledi were no direct human ancestors and no savanna runners, but bonobo-like forest-swamp or wetland waders (cf google 'gorilla bai'), who lived in +-stagnant waters (fossilised in mud-stone).  The curved hand-bones suggest vertical climbing in the branches above. The long thumbs were not in the first place for tool use (weak hand muscles), but possibly an adaptation for collecting aquatic herbaceous vegetation (AHV cf lowland gorillas) or/and for surface-swimming.   The flat humanlike feet are more flamingo- (plantigrade wader) than ostrich-like (digitigrade runner): for wading rather than running.  Lowland gorillas & bonobos regularly or occasionally wade on 2 legs in swamp forests for sedges, frogbit, waterlilies etc. (google 'bonobo wading'), but naledi apparently exploited this special niche habitually.  It was no deliberate burial: when they died, their bodies got covered with mud & fossilised in mudstone, which, after the underground eroded, sank in the cave.  IMO, naledi was remarkably bonobo-like (Pan probably had more bipedal ancestors, e.g. they still have more humanlike feet prenatally): IMO they were fossils relatives of Pan rather than of Homo.

Hi Marc,

The fossils were not found in the Dragon's Back chamber, they were found in the Dinaledi Chamber which is isolated from Dragon's Back. The dolomite block that forms the Dragon's Back ridge formation did indeed fall out of the ceiling of the DB chamber, but the sediments in the Dinaledi chamber are internally-derived and unique to it. Given that certain elements like the hand and foot were in articulation in situ (suggesting that the remains were fleshed or semi-fleshed at the time of deposition), there is little evidence that the fossils collapsed out of the breccia in the ceiling, which is predominantly a chert cap.

This is a little less to do with your original question, but I'm a birder in my free time and to my knowledge the only birds that are plantigrade are grebes and loons. Flamingos are digitigrade, as with most other birds.

Cheers

Elen

Thanks Claudia, Elen and Mark for interesting points and clarifications. So, Dragon's Back and the Dinaledi chamber are startigraphically different and so their fossil content apparently from different  hominins. Does MarK's acquaboreal theory apply to naledi or t o Dragon's Back fossils?

Not sure why you need to post this question, because it was very clearly explained when the story broke where the fossils were found, ànd that they were a new hominin species, and not Australopithecus. Please don't waste researchers' time, just because you don't want to put in the effort to find out even the most basic information available.

Hi Elen, many thanks, you're completely right.

Yes, it looks more like that the mudstone didn't fell out of the roof, but moved very slowly side- & downward to where it is now (on average 1 m in perhaps every 30,000 years if the fossils were Pliocene).

And yes, flamingoes are digitigrade, not plantigrade. How do we have to describe the differences between ostrich & a flamingo feet?

Thanks a lot!  --marc

Hi Anek, the aquarboreal theory (Latin aqu-=water + arbor=tree, term coined by Marcel Williams) argues that most Mio-Pliocene hominoids (incl. australopithecines) lived in swamp forests (wetland, flooded, mangrove etc.forests) where they spent part of their time in the branches & part in the water. In the 1980s we predicted that the Homo/Pan last common ancestor c 5 Ma lived in swamp forests (presumably coastal forests), I argued (in 4 papers in Hum.Evol.) that this H/P-LCA was a mosaic of human, bonono & unique features, and resembled bonobos more than other living hominids (hominids sensu Pan-Homo-Gorilla + fossil relatives, vs pongids) but had more humanlike feet & hands: prenatal chimps still have more humanlike feet (e.g. SC Coon), and female mountain gorillas also have adducted big toes which resemble ours more than they resemble say orang feet (e.g. AH Schultz). Such flat feet are not for running (all cursorial mammals run on their hooves or toes) but for wading or swimming or perhaps climbing (great apes). The H/P-LCA did not knuckle-walk, nor had the elongated hands & arms of chimps (pongids & hylobatids in parallel evolved even monger fingers-hands-arms).

A.naledi seems to be what I had predicted: "... insofar as the fragmentary fossil material and the incomplete comparisons with extant apes allow, ontogenetic and morphological evidence tends to favour the hypothesis that the last common ancestor of Homo and Pan 8-4 Myr BP was a partially bipedal, gracile australopith with chiefly a mosaic of human and chimpanzee (esp. bonobo) features: low sexual dimorphism, minimal prognathism, slightly enlarged canines, non-protruding nasal skeleton, smooth ectocranium without crests, “small” brain with ape-like sulcal pattern, relatively non-flexed basicranium, intermediate position of foramen magnum, “short” forelimbs without knuckle-walking features, low ilia, (very) long femoral necks, “short” legs, (very) valgus knees, full plantigrady, longer and not very abductable halluces" (conclusion of "Australopithecines: Ancestors of the African Apes?" 1994 Human Evolution 9:121-139, 1994).

A.naledi had indeed more Homo-like front-teeth, hands & feet, but that doesn't make it a member of Homo: most or all early hominids probably had more Homo-like front-teeth, hands & feet. In nearly all of the rest, naledi was remarkably bonobo- and/or australopith-like. There's no need for Berger's anthropocentric interpretations that naledi was a closer relative of Homo than of Pan or Australopithecus, that naledi ran over the African plains (distance running), that naledi made tools more than chimp do, or that they buried their dead in caves... Their curved finger-bones suggest vertical climbing, their humanlike flat feet suggest wading or swimming, they're fossils were remarkably complete & found in mudstone: when they died, they almost immediately got covered with oxygen-poor mud? What more do we need?

In fact, in the1990s came the confirmation that aquarboreal apes still existed in the hottest & wettest forests (the Mion-Pliocene was warmer & wetter than the Pleistocene): google e.g. gorilla bai, bonobo wading, etc.

Hi Anek - There are no fossil hominin remains in the Dragon's Back chamber. So far, Dinaledi is the only hominin-bearing chamber we've found in the system. 

Cheers

Elen

It's H. naledi, not A. naledi.

Hi Anek. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. I understand that fossil hunters prefer to dig a "human ancestor" than a "chimp ancestor", but Berger's anthropocentrism is deplorable just-so thinking. There's nothing uniquely-Homo in naledi: small brain, large M3s, bonobo-like postcrania, no external nose, no long legs: naledi looks most like P.paniscus & A.africanus. That early hominids had more humanlike feet & hands has been predicted, e.g. in my Hum.Evol.papers, or google aquarboreal.

Marc- your comments are quite challenging. The authors of H. naledi might respond better on the taxonomic classification. However, naledi also sounds to me like that of the Indonesian Hobbit if not chimp-like.

Thanks, Anek.

The authors of naledi reason (like so many paleo-anthropologists): humans are the only hominoids with humanlike feet, therefore humanlike feet are derived, therefore every fossil with humanlike feet is Homo. But they forget that prenatal chimps have more humanlike feet (with adducted & rel.long big toe) which then change into chimp-like feet (S.C.Coon); and that female lowland gorillas retain such more-humanlike feet into adulthood (S.H.Schultz). IOW, the early hominids (HPG + fossil relatives) probably had humanlike feet: flat feet: not for running, not for climbing, but for wading and/or swimming - exactly what we had predicted: that early hominids lived in swamp forests (I'd think in coastal forests, google research-Gate marc verhaegen).

H.floresiensis IMO (FWIW) seems to be an islandised erectus: reverted partly to a more australopith-like lifestyle (I'd think aquarboreal again).

H. naledi buried its deceased relatives. Where the remains were found proves this is the case. They have been buried by relatives, and this behaviour is solid proof for H. naledi to be a hominid, and far from being a chimp etc. Its human-like feet only add to the mounting evidence.

A post on in the comment section of an article in Gizmodo, regarding the "controversy":

Chuck E.

cintune

10/25/15 9:17pm

"I watched the TV special, and two things are surprising about the cache of remains (three if you count that they are deep within a cave in a nearly unreachable location):

First, in the case of predator leavings or “fall in” traps (where many of the oldest hominid fossils have been found) you get a mix of different animals, and especially a lot of antelopes in the case of predators. In this location, they found evidence of just one other animal there, an owl. All the rest of the bones are hominid and all of the same species.

Second, we’re talking an unprecidented number of separate individuals in the find. More than a dozen, and potentially a great many more. When the scientists look at the bones from the perspective of how old the individuals were, they find that they have the bones of mostly the elderly and the very young. They called this a “cemetery population” because that’s what you’d find if you were to take a census of the bodies in any modern cemetery. Most people buried there died either very young or much older, with a smaller percentage coming from young adult/middle age.

To address the third bit, about the location of the bones: The graphics they used in the show depicting the room as it was back in time showed sunlight from above, so access directly to the chamber. Given one or two million years of further cave formation, it’s logical to assume there was such access. I doubt they have direct evidence of that, though. It’s just an assumption at this point. They had to recruit very small scientists with caving or climbing experience to enter the chamer to do the excavations.

It was a good show. I’m happy they’ve made the evidence (especially the 3D scans) available to everyone. Let Science now do its job." http://gizmodo.com/the-controversy-over-homo-naledi-is-actually-a-good-thi-1738572110

http://gizmodo.com/the-controversy-over-homo-naledi-is-actually-a-good-thi-1738572110

Professor Berger has a rich imagination. I very much liked his "Predatory bird damage to the Taung type-skull of A.africanus" (AJPA 131:166–168, 2006). His "rodeo" explanation of neandertal skeletal damages OTOH is unnecessary & fat-fetched, and his interpretations of naledi are even worse. Yes, it was a good show, but that's about all: there's no need for just-so interpretations about human ancestors running over African savannas, making tools & burrying their dead in caves. This is anthropocentric fantasy without any evidence. The facts are clear: naledi fossilised in mudstone, had curved hand phalanges & more humanlike flat feet. That means: they collected aquatic herbaceous vegetation (AHV) in wetlands & swamp forests, like lowland gorillas & bonobos do but more frequently, as we predicted already in the 1990s. Of course there were no other macro-fauna near the naledi fossils, just google "gorilla bai" illustrations.

Not at all. How can you ignore the overwhelming evidence that this is a burial site? This is the most clear cut find of a new hominid since the beginning of anthropology, with numerous intact specimens of the same species, etc, etc. Yes, it's too good to be true, but that does not mean it isn't.

"Growing evidence"? Mr Geersis takes his wishes for reality. He has no arguements.

A new hominid site, of course: naledi was remarkably bonobo-like (with primitive hominid more Homo-like feet, hands & anterior dentition), and bonobos are hominids (sensu vs pongids), so of course it's a new hominid site. This confirms that naledi frequently waded in wetlands e.g. for aquatic herbaceous vegetation (AHV) like bonobos (google bonobo wading, see illustrations) or lowland gorillas do but more frequently (google aquarboreal).

Intact specimens, of course: the geological (mudston) & anatomical evidence (climbing hands + wading feet) show that naledi lived in swamp forests (cf google "gorilla bai"), where their bodies after death sank into the mud.

The belief in a "burial site" is anthropocentrism based on no facts.

I think you are fighting a lone battle Marc.

It's obvious your are fighting a lost battle, Freek...  :-D 

The facts are clear: mud-stone, curved finger-bones, flat feet, brains of 500 cc, etc. These fossils were predicted: already in 1991 I wrote about the gracile australopithecines ("Aquatic ape theory and fossil hominids" Med.Hypoth.35:108-114, 1991, attachment): "there are some indications that their locomotion was a mixture of bipedal wading, surface-swimming and tree-climbing" - even before the Ndoki gorillas & later the wading bonobos in Congo's swamp forests were described. A natural accumulation (google gorilla bai): there's no need for far-feched fantasies about naledi burying their dead in caves.

Many old-fashioned anthropologists still believe that apes evolved into australopiths, who evolved into humans, and that every feature where humans differ from chimps is derived (this logical mistake, confusing "since" & "because",  is called "post hoc ergo propter hoc": "after that, hence because of that"), without realising that australopithes are more primitive (4-1 Ma) than living apes (who live now, 0 Ma). They believe that because naledi had more humanlike feet, they were human ancestors. Humans are simply more primitive-hominid in foot shape.

Perhaps you should download and study articles like the one posted by Claudia, instead of just your own, so you can learn, and perhaps accept Marc, the real facts (I won't hold my breath).

Perhaps you should finally try to give us a real argument, Freek, instead of your only "argument" that because something comes from me it must be wrong.  :-D  The real facts are that Berger's anthropocentric interpretations of naledi (human ancestor, distance runner, tool maker, deliberate burial) are unnecessary just-so fantasies, please see the attached illustration.

Just because it doesn't fit your rusty, old-school train of thought, doesn't make it less plausible Marc.

Hi all,

Although I have little reason to throw myself into this seemingly overheated debate, I just want to comment on the preservational context of the H. (A.?) naledi fossils:

The overall sedimentologic, paleontologic and ichnologic details of the H. naledi-bearing strata, as described in the literature, do not indicate any open aquatic environment (e.g., swamp, wetland). Perhaps most significantly, one would expect a range of unqestionably aquatic organisms (especially obligate such) to distinctly outnumber non-aquatic/semi-aquatic ones in the fossil assemblage of such a paleoenvironent. In short: the host rock may be mudstone, but there is little evidence of any productive environment suitable for foraging at the time of deposition.

These observations stand regardless of views on lifestyle, mode of burial, phylogeny, taxonomy, etc.

Thanks, Anders, these are at least reasonable arguments, unlike the ad hominem "arguments" of Mr Geeris.

Did you google "bonobo wading" or "gorilla bai"?

-The curved hand-bones suggest regular vertical climbing in the branches above: I wouldn't call the environment "open".

-The mud was presumably oxygen-poor: which aquatic organisms would you expect to have fossilised there?

Wake up from your bubble Marc, you're not getting any thumbs ups. Your "arguments" are in vain, as long as,you keep on ignoring the clearcut evidence.

I have read about and seen pictures of bonobos, gorillas and other apes/monkeys that have taken to a lifestyle involving water and its resources. I do not question that our ancestors may have developed such behaviors – perhaps it would even be likely, and I can see several reasons for them to have done so. That being said, I have too little background knowledge on the subject of fossil hominid lifestyles and possibly associated morphologic adaptions to engage in any debates on how they lived or did not live. I merely wanted to provide some input on the sedimentologic details in the case of the H. naledi fossils, as I find the overall subject interesting.

"-The curved hand-bones suggest regular vertical climbing in the branches above: I wouldn't call the environment "open"."

* With the term ’open’, I was mainly referring to the question whether the depositional environment was within a cave or at the surface. Judging from the sedimentologic characteristics of the strata in question, it seems to have been an environment largely closed off from the surroundings (an unusual characteristic). A cave appears reasonable, especially when one takes into account associated flowstones, etc.

"-The mud was presumably oxygen-poor: which aquatic organisms would you expect to have fossilised there?"

Although perhaps limited in diversity and/or size in an oxygen-poor environment, one would most likely find a wide range of organisms: if not vertebrates, then at least various mollusks, crustaceans, insects and other invertebrates. At the ~microscopic scale, the sediment would contain shell fragments and sclerites from ostracods and other small organisms that occur in more or less all aquatic environments (microfossils can provide invaluable paleoenvironmental information!). As oxygen-poor conditions entail limited decomposition, they would be beneficial for the preservation of fossils – perhaps especially so for plants, the materials of which would abundantly become embedded in the sediment if it were a swamp setting (cf. coal deposits).

Regardless of how one interprets the process(es) behind their burial, the hitherto published observations indicate an unnatural ratio of H. naledi vs. other fossil organisms. This is spectacular for any environment, but even more so for an aquatic one.

Until H. naledi fossils are found in association with sediments that are more likely to represent a reasonable living environment, or together with artifacts such as tools and other worked materials, few ’hard facts’ can be stated about their mode of life. Information can certainly be deduced from morphologic details, but these can rarely be used as conclusive evidence for a specific lifestyle unless they contain very specialized traits. On the subject of geology, the rock in which one finds a fossil does not necessarily represent the living environment of the organism (but they tend to do, especially in the case of aquatic organisms).

The best information would of course be gained by combining abiotic and biotic data when interpreting any find in the geologic record.

Excellent answers, Anders, thanks a lot.

Prof.Dirks emailed me that the absence of flowstone (IOW, no associated flowstone) was IHO an argument against the fossils having been washed or flushed into the cave (what I initially thought might have happened). Mudstone OTOH forms in +-stagnant water. The illustrations of the naledi cave suggest that the mudstone seems to have been moved down- & sidewards with an average velocity of a few centimetres per thousand years: well possible I'd think.

A.afarensis Lucy was found amid crocodile eggs & crab claws (Johanson & Taieb), A.boisei (Olduvai) was found amid swamp vegetation, reed roots & papyrus, and others (Baringo) in lagoons (Carney cs 1971 Nature 230:509) etc., so I wasn't surprised that remarkably complete skeletons of naledi (which - except for the more humanlike but primitive forefeet - looked most like bonobos & gracile australopiths) was found in mudstone. I only don't know whether the mudstone has already been analysed thoroughly (for micro-fossils etc.), or how organic material (esp.plants) disintegrates in anaerobic conditions, etc. Yes, this is a spectacular find, but when we see the photos of lowland gorillas feeding in great densities in wetlands, this can well explain the remarkable density of the naledi skeletons, e.g. when they died, they might have sunk in the mud, where few animals could live. There certainly exist very different "aquatic" environments, but I agree we'll have to await detailed analyses of the mudstone etc.

If the geology can be discussed, the morphology is clear IMO & specialised: curved manual phalanges are for vertical & below-branch climbing, and flat feet are seen in wading-swimming animals, not in cursorials (human feet were not primarily for distance-running: Bramble & Lieberman only considered running vs climbing (Man vs Ape), they didn't even consider the possibility of wading or swimming, see attachment). A few years before the Nodiki gorillas were described, I already suggested that the australopithecine "locomotion was a mixture of bipedal wading, surface-swimming and tree-climbing" (Med.Hypoth. 35:108-114, 1991) and that the Homo-Pan LCA c 5 Ma was "a partially bipedal, gracile australopith with chiefly a mosaic of human and chimpanzee (esp. bonobo) features: low sexual dimorphism, minimal prognathism, slightly enlarged canines, non-protruding nasal skeleton, smooth ectocranium without crests, “small” brain with ape-like sulcal pattern, relatively non-flexed basicranium, intermediate position of foramen magnum, “short” forelimbs without knuckle-walking features, low ilia, (very) long femoral necks, “short” legs, (very) valgus knees, full plantigrady, longer and not very abductable halluces" (Hum.Evol. 9:121-139): this is almost exactly a description of naledi. 

In any case, it's wishful thinking to believe that these creatures (brains of c 500 cc) buried their dead in caves, that they ran over the open plains, that they made tools, and that they were Homo: all these anthropocentrisms are told for reality by prof.Berger & eagerly accepted by the media.

Sorry, should be Ndoki, not Nodiki, of course.

The simple statement that the first Naledi jaw "fell out of the breccia above" implies that there is somewhere below the breccia for the jaw to fall in to. This, again, implies a multi-phase history for the formation of the cave and its sediment fills. Having read such papers as are available I am yet to be convinced that this deposit formed in situ, the pre-requisite for the intentional burial hypotheses.

I>; "I am a member of the club who made the discovery of the Naledi Fossil ... The cave itself has been known to us and visited frequently for as long as I have been a member of the club. It has indeed been well surveyed and what initially started as 3 different cave systems were all eventually interconnected to create 1 large system. The fossils were discovered in a section known as the Dragon's Back. This section was visited and surveyed and has never seen visitors since the survey was first created (I stand to be corrected but I believe 1980s). A new adventurous member of the club - Steven - set out to re-explore the cave. His visit to the chamber was met with the discovery of the first mandible which had collapsed from the breccia above. It was more a matter of good luck and 20 years of nature's impact that led to the discovery ..."

"Collapsed from the breccia above".  A.sediba & other S.African australopiths also came from breccia.

Can it be checked whether some or all naledi fossils came from the roof: then the roof should still contain fossils, I'd think? If they fell piecemeal, as the discoverer said, how often does this happen? If every year 1 fossil falls from the roof, this could explain the accumulation in 2 or 3 mill.yrs? But the illustrations in the articles show also Dragon's Back, which is an enormous rockfall: a whole block of rock at once fell down?

A.boisei fossils are typically found amid papyrus swamps (G.Conroy) & lagoons (J.Carney), and A.afarensis Lucy was found amid crocodile eggs & crab claws (D.Johanson). When they died in the swamp, their bodies got soon covered with mud: Lucy was found amid "crocodile and turtle eggs and crab claws" (Johanson & Taieb 1976), boisei at Olduvai was found in "lake-margin deposits ... swamp vegetation ... some kind of reed ... marshland and/or shallow water" (Conry 1990). If gorillas & bonobos find foods in swamps etc., there's no reason why naledi wouldn't have found (part of) its food in comparable wetlands (which were possibly a lot more abundant there in the much hotter & wetter Pliocene - there has been an uplift of this region sine naledi's time)? Where the Nariokotome Boy (H.ergaster) was found, the aquatic component of the environment was clear (e.g. different spp of catfish, swamp-snails, turtles, reed, hippo footprints), but the naledi environment might have been +- different (e.g. google illustrations ate "bonobo wading" or "gorilla bai"), and has (or can? cf preservation etc.) the naledi bed already been described in detail? In ancy case, naledi's morphology is clear: the combination of curved hand bones + flat feet is explained by an aquarboreal lifestyle as still sometimes seen in lowland gorillas & bonobos in search for floating frogbit, sedges or waterlilies, but more frequently (hence naledi's flatter feet & smaller front teeth).

An update.

Update 1.11.18

Thanks Marc, the circumstances of the first discovery are clearly significant.

For an update of ape & human evolution, google e.g.

"Lucy was no human ancestor PPT".