A team of archaelologists, run by Professor Berger have recently discovered a past species,or cousin,of homo sapiens; Homo naledis.
The bones were found in a chamber Dinaledi ( or chamber of stars)
accessible only through a narrow chute,almost a hundred yards from the cave entrance. How they got there is a mystery. The most plausible answer so far; Bodies were dropped in from above. he remains were so close to one of the most excavated sites in the world, and no one discovered them until now.
LB - we can tell that Naledi comes from "deep time".
Homo naledi is about 2.5 to 2.8 million years old but other scientists say that they are still working to determine the age of the fossils.
Berger's conclusion that the cave was a burial chamber was also met with great scepticism because an early civilization that understands death and a possible after life, is very skeptical.
William Jungers, an anthropologist at the Stony Brook School of Medicine in New York "seems like a stretch to me".
Professor John Hawks, a member of Berger's team, told The Guardian that the evidence they found does not suggest they entered the chamber one at a time.
It seems like the bodies were carried into the chamber, suggesting an understanding of death.
Homo naledi should be about 2.5 million to 3 million years old but scientists don't know for sure, says Lee Berger.
Some scientists have cast doubt on the team's find. Christopher Zollikofer, an anthropologist at the University of Zurich, said that many of the bone characteristics used to claim naledi as a new species are seen in more primitive animals, and by definition cannot be used to define a new species.
Zollikofer said the few supposedly unique features that potentially define naledi need further scrutiny, as they may represent individual variation, or variation at the population level.
The fact that the fossils were found in a room deep underground, practically alone, in the absence of any other major fossil animals, suggests the possibility of a form of ritualized behavior previously thought to be unique to humans.
"Perhaps it is a cousin of us homosapiens", says Berger
Homo naledi had a tiny brain, about the size of an orange, and a slender body, was about 1.5 meters tall and weighed about 45 kilograms (or around 99 pounds)
Its teeth are similar to the earliest-known members of our genus, such Homo habilis, but the shoulders are more similar to those of apes.
The hands suggest tool-using capabilities, with extremely curved fingers, more curved than almost any other species of early hominin, which demonstrates climbing capabilities.
"This is a huge step to finding out who we actually are" says Professor Ramaphosa.