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What we know and do not know after the first decade of Homo naledi

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 8, pages 1579–1583 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

It has been just over 10 years since the first fossils attributed to Homo naledi were recovered from the Rising Star Cave system in South Africa’s Cradle of Humankind. The hominin fossil evidence for H. naledi displays a distinctive combination of primitive and derived morphology, yet for a time-averaged fossil sample it is remarkable for its relatively low level of variation. Thus—unusually for palaeoanthropology—there has been little pushback against the decision to recognize a single novel taxon for all of the material recovered from the Rising Star Cave system. However, almost everything else claimed about H. naledi—its age, burial context and behaviour—has been controversial. Here we examine the strength of the evidence for these claims.

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Fig. 1: Summary diagram showing the general nature (minus precise details) of a section through the sediments in the approximate centre of the Rising Star Cave system’s Dinaledi Chamber from which many of the H. naledi fossils derive.
Fig. 2: Published fossil evidence (also known as ‘elements’) for southern Africa early hominin taxa assigned to nine colour-coded regions of the skeleton.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Archaeology, Durham University, Durham, UK

    Paul Pettitt

  2. CASHP, Department of Anthropology, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

    Bernard Wood

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  1. Paul Pettitt
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  2. Bernard Wood
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Both authors contributed equally to writing the paper.

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Correspondence to Bernard Wood.

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Nature Ecology & Evolution thanks Mike Morley and Travis Pickering for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Pettitt, P., Wood, B. What we know and do not know after the first decade of Homo naledi. Nat Ecol Evol 8, 1579–1583 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02470-0

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