The Sunday Mail
Homo naledi – yes, we almost forgot about you, our dear ancestor. But how could we? When you mean so much to our understanding of where we came from, who we are and why we are. In a world so full of fury, anger and mistrust – many of us might not have taken notice of the arrival of homo naledi onto our shores, for our screens were full of the arrival of “migrants” onto Europe’s shores.
Quite funny that when the Europeans were coming to our shores, that is back in the day, our history books recorded them as discoverers, missionaries, explorers, among a bunch of other nice words. They were rarely referred to as settlers, migrants or colonizers.
Remember Alexander, The Great? Christopher Columbus, the explorer? David Livingstone, the “discoverer” of Victoria Falls? Robert Moffat, the Great Missionary? But poor three-year-old Aylan Kurdi is just one of the many thousands of Syrian migrants.
Well, that’s not the issue today. The issue is homo naledi. See, s/he was almost overshadowed by the issue of migrants, yet on an ordinary day naledi would have been news for weeks on end.
To those who might have missed the news altogether, I would be more than happy to share some of the background info. Homo naledi, whose finding is supposed to help unlock a number of questions as to the origins of humankind, was found in a cave in the Cradle of Humankind, this being a reference to a spot just outside Johannesburg where a number of archaeological artifacts have previously been found, most of them quite useful in proving the human evolution theory.
What makes the discovery of homo naledi all the more fascinating is that his or her features pre-date most of the fossils that have been found to date. The assumption of pre-dating coming from his/her features, which are more ancient than our other known ancestors.
The irony, though, being that homo naledi is yet to be dated because the fossils (bones) were found alone in a “burial” chamber. There were no other creatures nearby to help with dating.
The discovery, as expected, ignited the creation vs evolution debate. Were we created or we came from some apes, has been the raging question in the scientific world ever since homo naledi was paraded before the world the other week.
While we will leave scientists, researchers and archeologists to debate the finer details of this find, there were a number of questions that were very apparent even to some of us, those of us who are not even in the archaeological world.
But after reading about the discovery in a number of publications, and then sitting down to watch Carte Blanche on M-Net last Sunday, my curiosity was raised even further. Because the Carte Blanche programme gave me – and possibly many other curious minds – the visuals that were lacking. At least we managed to see the Rising Star Cave, the so-called “burial” chamber.
From the cave entrance to the repository where the bones were found, is a distance of some 90 metres, never mind that in-between those 90 metres are three sections of the tunnel which are 25cm, 20cm and 18cm wide. Which raises the first of the many intriguing questions: why bother going through so much torture in so small tunnels to bury your loved ones, 90 metres away? What kind of love is that?
Even the scientists agreed among themselves, that it was a hassle to get to where the bones were deposited, even with the use of modern high-tech equipment, which included lights and ropes, so how much of a hassle could it have been those millions of years back? Especially given that they would have been carrying dead ones to their resting place?
With the help of three-dimensional printing techniques, the scientists were able to configure how the primates could have looked like. It was then deduced that these guys had brains the size of an orange. Now that’s next to a mosquito-sized brain, isn’t it? Which leaves one wondering if the presence of their remains in the “burial” chamber could not have been a result of the sheer size of their brains? That probably the guys ran into a maze and could not find their way out? Whatever!
Then we have matters of faith and religion on the other hand, matters which inform us of the works of the Almighty, in those seven wonderful days, when He created the earth, the universe – with flora and fauna in abundance. He must have been a busy fellow, if you ask me, especially if you get time to watch National Geographic.
So where does the discovery of homo naledi leave us, vis-à-vis creation? When scientists are busy hammering down our throats that we came down from those ancestors, whose brains were the sizes of oranges, and through time and space, found a need to evolve and adapt to a changing world.
Then there is the issue of date, some scientists are arguing that the fossils should be dated and must be dated. Because their age will answer a number of questions, especially if they are found to have been a fairly recent species. Their presence in the cave chambers could have been because they were stuffed in there by adversaries, which could have been humans! Or they could have been migrants! Looking for a sanctuary.
But lead researcher, Lee Berger, argued that dating the fossils was not going to be a stroll in the park, as there are no rock deposits or remnants of a similar nature, from about the same time, that could aid in the dating. carbon-dating, they call it.
I hope Bishop Lazarus will not be miffed if I were to steal one verse from the Bible, Hebrews 11 verse 1: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”. The faithful amongst us will dismiss homo naledi and the other collection of bones, 1 550 pieces of bones, which makes them the biggest find in archaeological history of such a nature, and tell us that it is the work of God that brought us to be on this earth, to be what we are today.
They will tell you that Robert Moffat could not have been born of homo naledi, not even.
You have a different take? Please feel free to get in touch: [email protected] or Facebook or on Twitter @gmazara.
