Paleontologists recognize their science is as much one of gaps as it is of fossils. It’s not easy to become a fossil. An organism dies. It decays. Scavangers do their work. Hard parts go missing, become mineralized, or fall apart. Environments change. Gaps become fertile ground for imagination and assumption. Paleoanthropologists have the same problem. Take the last half dozen years or so as an example. Homo naledi became a news item that drew interest similar to the previous hoopla over Homo floresiensis, the “Hobbit” that lived an island life. What to make of both? What to assume?
We’re always dealing with gaps of one sort or another. And that’s because we live in a universe that seems to be simultaneously continuous and discontinuous. Take naledi, for example. Now estimated to have lived from more than 200,000 years ago to less than that, the species appears to provide another look into human evolution. Yet, there’s much about the fossil group that we don’t know. One of those gaps centers on why H. naledi ’s fossils seem to be aggregated in a cave largely without any other animal fossils. We can, at this time, only fill in the gaps with conjecture.
Did H. naledi bury the dead by tossing them or carrying them into South African caverns called Rising Star? Was the aggregation purposeful in the same way that H. sapiens buries its dead in cemeteries? Was there a practical reason for the aggregation, such as tossing bodies into places where they wouldn’t attract scavangers and predators that might attack the living H. naledi? Did an ethics or religion serve as motivation? Maybe the paleoanthropologists will stumble on other H. naledi sites that will resolve the question. In the meantime, we have gaps and conjectures.
And like those gaps associated with our ancient lineage, each of us is a mix of continuity and discontinuity. Each of us suddenly remembers an incident long gone through the brain’s random explorations of its past. We recognize gaps in our own existence; yet, we believe we are an example of continuity, the same person “more or less” over the course of our lives. That “more or less,” however, indicates some bias in our own fossil record.
The story of H. naledi ‘s discovery serves as an analog for our own study of those around us. An accidental find by two spelunkers, the fossils of H. naledi were difficult to retrieve. The paleoanthropologist directing the project had to recruit people to squeeze through narrow passages in the cave complex to retrieve the bits and pieces of bones. He could study up close only what they brought to the surface. Now, extend that bias in your own life to the bias in others’ lives. Our fossils are memories buried deep in the narrow passageways of axons. If you have partial memories, they have partial memories in the recesses of a cave system more complex than any visited by spelunking paleoanthropologists. Your past and theirs are skeletons with missing bones, missing details. They can enter the cave of memory to retrieve what they can to give you to study, but you can only go on what they bring up from the cave floor to assess for motive and meaning.
Self-assessment is a difficult task that requires in the absence of all the details a good bit of assuming. Assessment of the lives of others is an even more difficult task. We can use our knowledge of people as a guide, but we can never quite get past those unfillable gaps, particularly when the present and false memories can further prejudice our conclusions as is the case with fossil sites that have been disturbed in the time between burial and discovery.
It seems that we are often just as much at a disadvantage in our analysis of motives as paleonathropologists are with regard to motives behind H. naledi‘s aggregated remains. Once again, I’ll note that assumptions and axioms appear to play a key role in our interpretations of the world and people around us, but that dependence on assumptions and axioms shouldn’t keep us from continuing to explore the cave of our own or of others’ memories in search of motives.
*Greshko, Michael. “Did This Mysterious Ape-Human Once Live alongside Our Ancestors?” National Geographic ,May 9, 2017. Online at https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/05/homo-naledi-human-evolution-science/
Netflix now has Nova’sDawn of Humanity, the story of H. naledi ‘s discovery, Online at https://www.netflix.com/watch/80080271?trackId=14170286&tctx=3%2C1%2Ce7ecfae2-8459-4a95-bb9b-b21c22ecab93-10970539%2C1ef6a308-0d85-4c17-a3ab-424248b7420f_3165660X3XX1530966612423%2C1ef6a308-0d85-4c17-a3ab-424248b7420f_ROOT
Lee Berger is the paleoanthropologist and lead researcher of H. naledi fossils.
Berger, Lee R.; et al. (10 September 2015). "Homo naledi, a new species of the genus Homo from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa"
We’re always dealing with gaps of one sort or another. And that’s because we live in a universe that seems to be simultaneously continuous and discontinuous. Take naledi, for example. Now estimated to have lived from more than 200,000 years ago to less than that, the species appears to provide another look into human evolution. Yet, there’s much about the fossil group that we don’t know. One of those gaps centers on why H. naledi ’s fossils seem to be aggregated in a cave largely without any other animal fossils. We can, at this time, only fill in the gaps with conjecture.
Did H. naledi bury the dead by tossing them or carrying them into South African caverns called Rising Star? Was the aggregation purposeful in the same way that H. sapiens buries its dead in cemeteries? Was there a practical reason for the aggregation, such as tossing bodies into places where they wouldn’t attract scavangers and predators that might attack the living H. naledi? Did an ethics or religion serve as motivation? Maybe the paleoanthropologists will stumble on other H. naledi sites that will resolve the question. In the meantime, we have gaps and conjectures.
And like those gaps associated with our ancient lineage, each of us is a mix of continuity and discontinuity. Each of us suddenly remembers an incident long gone through the brain’s random explorations of its past. We recognize gaps in our own existence; yet, we believe we are an example of continuity, the same person “more or less” over the course of our lives. That “more or less,” however, indicates some bias in our own fossil record.
The story of H. naledi ‘s discovery serves as an analog for our own study of those around us. An accidental find by two spelunkers, the fossils of H. naledi were difficult to retrieve. The paleoanthropologist directing the project had to recruit people to squeeze through narrow passages in the cave complex to retrieve the bits and pieces of bones. He could study up close only what they brought to the surface. Now, extend that bias in your own life to the bias in others’ lives. Our fossils are memories buried deep in the narrow passageways of axons. If you have partial memories, they have partial memories in the recesses of a cave system more complex than any visited by spelunking paleoanthropologists. Your past and theirs are skeletons with missing bones, missing details. They can enter the cave of memory to retrieve what they can to give you to study, but you can only go on what they bring up from the cave floor to assess for motive and meaning.
Self-assessment is a difficult task that requires in the absence of all the details a good bit of assuming. Assessment of the lives of others is an even more difficult task. We can use our knowledge of people as a guide, but we can never quite get past those unfillable gaps, particularly when the present and false memories can further prejudice our conclusions as is the case with fossil sites that have been disturbed in the time between burial and discovery.
It seems that we are often just as much at a disadvantage in our analysis of motives as paleonathropologists are with regard to motives behind H. naledi‘s aggregated remains. Once again, I’ll note that assumptions and axioms appear to play a key role in our interpretations of the world and people around us, but that dependence on assumptions and axioms shouldn’t keep us from continuing to explore the cave of our own or of others’ memories in search of motives.
*Greshko, Michael. “Did This Mysterious Ape-Human Once Live alongside Our Ancestors?” National Geographic ,May 9, 2017. Online at https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/05/homo-naledi-human-evolution-science/
Netflix now has Nova’sDawn of Humanity, the story of H. naledi ‘s discovery, Online at https://www.netflix.com/watch/80080271?trackId=14170286&tctx=3%2C1%2Ce7ecfae2-8459-4a95-bb9b-b21c22ecab93-10970539%2C1ef6a308-0d85-4c17-a3ab-424248b7420f_3165660X3XX1530966612423%2C1ef6a308-0d85-4c17-a3ab-424248b7420f_ROOT
Lee Berger is the paleoanthropologist and lead researcher of H. naledi fossils.
Berger, Lee R.; et al. (10 September 2015). "Homo naledi, a new species of the genus Homo from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa"
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