Homo naledi: Burial, Engravings, and Fire

eLife.  “eLife assessment and public reviews of "Evidence for deliberate burial of the dead by Homo naledi", reviewed preprint version 1.”  eLife.  Jul 12, 2023.  The editors' assessment and four anonymous reviews of the first version of the burial paper.  eLife publishes its reviews and assessment with the preprint whatever the authors wish, which is why this exchange is on the record.  Senior editor George H. Perry.

1. 1a.

   Section eLife assessment:  States that demonstrating the earliest known intentional funerary practice by a small-brained hominin.  “would be a landmark finding”.  but that.  “the evidence for these claims is considered inadequate in the current version of the study”.  and records that the four reviewers were.  “in strong consensus that the methods, data, and analyses do not support the primary conclusions”.  that without full excavations the study lacks crucial geoarchaeology and taphonomic work, and that the null hypothesis must be that the skeletons accumulated naturally. ↩ ↩

2. 1b.

   Section Reviewer #2, paragraph 2:  “'Dinaledi Feature 1' consists of a collection of 108 skeletal elements recovered from sub-unit 3b deposits.  These remains are believed to primarily represent the remains of a single adult individual, along with at least one additional juvenile individual. … On the other hand, 'Dinaledi Feature 2' is not extensively discussed, and its complete extent was not thoroughly investigated.”  Paragraph 3:  “Regarding the Hill Antechamber feature, it was divided into three separate plaster jackets for removal from the excavation.  Through micro-CT and medical CT scans of these plaster jackets, a total of 90 skeletal elements and 51 dental elements were identified.”  The reviewer is summarising the preprint here, before criticising it. ↩

3. 1c.

   Section Reviewer #1, paragraph 3:  “They also do not consider carnivore involvement which has been suggested by Val (2016) and Egeland et al. (2018).  Such processes could naturally transport bodies, shift them around, and sediment erosion could bury them.”  "Such processes" are erosion, sediment slumping and carnivores, named in the sentences before. ↩

4. 1d.

   Section Reviewer #1, paragraph 3:  “The working hypothesis is that the features are intentional burials, and the authors seek to support this hypothesis throughout rather than test it.” ↩ ↩

5. 1e.

   Section Reviewer #1, paragraph 4:  “How could any species, even small bodied species, drag/pull/shove dead bodies through small crevasses, shove or drop them down a narrow shoot, continue to move through the hill antechamber to the Dineledi chamber and bury bodies?  It is not impossible but given the previously published descriptions of the dynamic process of sedimentation movement in the cave it is certainly not a parsimonious explanation.”  The spellings are the reviewer's. ↩

6. 1f.

   Section Reviewer #1, paragraph 2:  “does not meet the standards of our field”. ↩

7. 1g.

   Section Reviewer #2:  “Insufficient evidence is provided to differentiate between natural processes and intentional funerary practices.”  “My main concern is that the study does not apply or cite the basic principles of archaeothanatology”. ↩

8. 1h.

   Section Reviewer #3:  “The main issue with the paper is that the purported burials were not fully excavated.  Two are still in the ground, and one was removed in blocks but left unexcavated.  As burials are mostly about sediments, it means the authors are lacking important lines of evidence.” ↩

9. 1i.

   Section Reviewer #3:  “So, unless the team can provide some process that would have otherwise disarticulated these skeletons after the bodies arrived here and decomposed, their articulated state is not evidence of burial (no more than finding an articulated or mostly articulated bear skeleton deep in a European cave would suggest that it was buried).” ↩

10. 1j.

    Section Reviewer #3:  “One of the key pieces of evidence for demonstrating deliberate burial is the recognition of a pit. … But the starting point of any discussion of deliberate burial has to be the demonstration of a pit.  And I don't see it here.” ↩

11. 1k.

    Section Reviewer #3:  “That H. naledi buried their dead here can't be excluded based on the data, but neither is it supported here.” ↩

12. 1l.

    Section Reviewer #3:  “what if the body was stuffed down the chute and was resting on a slope and covered with additional sediments from the chute”. ↩

13. 1m.

    Section Reviewer #4:  “Regardless of the missing data, this reviewer attempted to replicate the XRF PCA results using the data provided in SI Table 1 and was unsuccessful.  The samples that were collected from within the feature (SB) cluster with samples collected from sterile sediments and other locations around the cave system.  Thus, these results are not replicable as currently reported.” ↩

14. 1n.

    Section Reviewer #4:  “the "artifact" that was described and visualized using CT models is just that - a digitally colored model.  The object in question has not been analyzed.  Until this object is removed from the dirt and physically analyzed, this information needs to be removed from the manuscript as there is nothing to report before the object is physically examined.” ↩

Pettitt, Paul.  “Did Homo naledi dispose of their dead in the Rising Star Cave system?”  South African Journal of Science 118(11/12):15140.  Nov 30, 2022.  A three-page commentary by the Durham archaeologist who wrote The Palaeolithic Origins of Human Burial;  sympathetic to the disposal reading and sets three tests for it.

1. 2a.

   Page 1:  “Critics of the notion forget that bodies may be deposited in deep caves without any sophisticated cognitive rationale behind the behaviour”. ↩

2. 2b.

   Page 2:  “One thing that such a practice would require is light.  Why has no evidence of artificial light (in the form of charcoal fragments in Units 2 or 3, or torch wipes on the cave’s walls) been recovered?  Despite the evidence of post-depositional reworking, one might expect fragments of charcoal to remain in Unit 3 at least.  Might any of the stalactites contain evidence of soot?” ↩

3. 2c.

   Page 3:  “The funerary hypothesis certainly cannot be ruled out, and if anything it seems to me that the team nudge closer to firming up a justification for this.  I’m nearly convinced, but not quite.  Three questions for the team come to mind:  Can one definitively rule out a different and as-yet unmapped entrance into the Dinaledi Chamber …?  Is there any evidence of artificial lighting in the cave system, e.g. torch wipes, charcoal fragments or soot trapped in carbonate deposits?  Is there evidence that it was dead bodies, rather than body parts that were carried into the chamber?” ↩ ↩

eLife.  “eLife assessment, public reviews and author response for "Evidence for deliberate burial of the dead by Homo naledi", version of record.”  eLife.  Sep 1, 2025.  The final assessment, the reports of the two reviewers who returned for the revision, numbered #1 and #2 as in 2023, and the authors' response.  Reviewers #3 and #4 of 2023 did not review the revision.  All four texts were first published with the revised preprint on 28 March 2025 and stand word for word the same beside the version of record of 1 September 2025.

1. 3a.

   Section eLife assessment:  “The authors have revised their manuscript extensively in light of the reviews of their initial submission, with improved illustration, context, discussion, and theoretical frameworks, leading to an improved case supporting their conclusion that Homo naledi intentionally buried their dead.  One of the reviewers concludes that the findings convincingly demonstrate intentional burial practices, while another considers evidence for such an unambiguous conclusion to be incomplete given a lack of definitive knowledge around how the hominins got into the chamber. … The editors note that the authors' response repeatedly invokes precedent from previous publications to help justify the conclusions in this paper.  While doing so is helpful, the editors also note that scientific norms and knowledge are constantly evolving, and that any study has to rest on its own scientific merit.”  The assessment's terms are significance "landmark" and two strength terms, "convincing" and "incomplete". ↩ ↩

2. 3b.

   Section Reviewer #2:  “the findings now convincingly demonstrate not only clear evidence of intentional burial practices by Homo naledi but also compelling indications of post-depositional reworking.”  “Importantly, the authors remain cautious in their interpretation of the evidence, explicitly refraining from inferring "symbolic" behavior or complex cognitive motivations behind these burials.” ↩

3. 3c.

   Section Reviewer #1:  “This version of the paper considers at great length many possibilities for how the H. naledi skeletal material came to rest in the cave system with some additional figures and data provided.  However, quite a lot is still unclear.” ↩

4. 3d.

   Section Reviewer #1:  “I hope that in the coming years these issues are addressed, and perhaps other independent teams are allowed to do a full analysis since science is about replication.” ↩

5. 3e.

   Section Reviewer #1:  “The work by Robbins et al. 2021 (a peer-reviewed paper in the impact factor rated journal Chemical Geology) is extremely relevant here. … This section should be moved out of the supplementary material and expanded because the conclusions published by Robbins et al. (2021) indicate a completely different route by which H. naledi accessed the cave, but this is hardly mentioned in the revision and deserves attention.”  “This conclusion is very different from the complex pathway suggested by Berger et al.” ↩

6. 3f.

   Section Author response:  “We note that the accessibility of the subsystem is not strictly relevant to the hypothesis of cultural burial, although the location of the remains does inform the overall context which may reflect a selection of a location perceived as special in some way.” ↩

7. 3g.

   Section Author response:  “We do not concur that noncultural processes should be construed as a null hypothesis”. ↩

8. 3h.

   Section Author response:  “We have completely reworked the geochemical context associated with Feature 1 following the comments of reviewer 4. … The new geochemical analysis clearly shows that Feature 1 is associated with localized trace element signatures that exist in the sediments only in association with the fossil bones, which suggests lack of postdepositional mobilization of the fossils and sediments. … we removed the geochemical and sedimentological samples from other sites within the Dinaledi Subsystem.” ↩

9. 3i.

   Section Author response:  “We have chosen to keep the description of the possible artifact associated with the Hill Antechamber Feature in the Supplementary Information.  We do this while acknowledging that this is against the opinion of reviewer 4 … Whether Homo naledi shaped the rock or not, used it as a tool or not, whether the rock was placed with the body or not, it is unquestionably there.  Omitting this one object from the report would be simply dishonest.  Second, the data on this rock are at 16 micron resolution.  While physical inspection of its surface may eventually reveal trace evidence and will enable better characterization of the raw material, no mode of surface scanning will produce better evidence about the object’s shape.” ↩

Berger, Lee R. et al.  “Evidence for deliberate burial of the dead by Homo naledi.”  eLife 12:RP89106.  Sep 1, 2025.  The version of record of the burial paper, about 50,000 words with appendices, revised after the 2023 reviews.  Reviewed preprint 12 July 2023;  revised 28 March 2025;  version of record 1 September 2025.  Places are its section and appendix headings.

1. 4a.

   Section Results, Hill Antechamber Feature, General description:  “The Hill Antechamber Feature (Figure 5) was uncovered during excavations conducted in 2017 and 2018. … the team encountered a localized accumulation of bone fragments and skeletal elements across a roughly triangular space some 45 cm by 55 cm. … the team separated the feature into one larger and two smaller subsections, each of which was encased within a plaster jacket for removal.”  Section Materials and methods, Hill Antechamber:  “At present, the material remains in these plaster jackets in order to protect them and allow the application of technology to examine them in situ.”  Section Results, Dinaledi Chamber Feature 1, General description:  “The exposed area of the feature measures 50 cm in total length and 30 cm in breadth. … At this point of recognition, we ceased excavation to study the remains in place and leave witness sections for future hypothesis testing.”  Dinaledi Feature 1 was uncovered in 2018.  The paper's third line of evidence is a re-analysis of the 2013 to 2014 excavation pit, the "Puzzle Box". ↩ ↩

2. 4b.

   Section Primary cultural burial:  “A hole or pit is dug by hominins into sediment.  A body or parts of bodies are placed into this feature by hominins.  The remains are covered (backfilled) by hominins.”  “If evidence proves that one of these three actions did not occur, then the hypothesis is falsified.” ↩

3. 4c.

   Section Grave goods:  “The evidence from the Dinaledi Subsystem does not include unambiguous grave goods.  Further analyses of the stone in the Hill Antechamber Feature are planned after synchrotron imaging reconstruction that will guide excavation.” ↩

4. 4d.

   Section Appendix 3, Description of the Hill Antechamber artifact 1:  “Within the Hill Antechamber Feature is a rock of 138.5 mm length which is located within 20 mm of a group of bones interpreted as anatomically associated metacarpals and phalanges of a right hand. … At this writing, HAA1 still remains within the larger plaster jacket containing most of the Hill Antechamber Feature.”  “We cannot determine the type of stone unambiguously from scan data, but we hypothesize based on its surface characteristics that it is likely composed of dolomite, and there is no evidence that the rock is exogenous to the cave system.” ↩ ↩

Berger, Lee R. et al.  “Author Response: Evidence for deliberate burial of the dead by Homo naledi.”  eLife.  Jul 12, 2023.  The corresponding authors' first reply to the 2023 reviews, one joint text posted with all three preprints.  It says of itself that it "is not the revision of the manuscript and is only the initial opinion of the corresponding authors".

1. 5a.

   Paragraph 1:  “We have also benefited from a previous round of review of the manuscript describing the proposed burial features, which underwent two rounds of revisions in a high-impact journal over a period of approximately 8 months during 2022 and early 2023.  Both sets of reviews have reflected mixed responses to the evidence we have presented, with one reviewer recommending acceptance with minor editorial revisions, two recommending acceptance with minor revisions and the fourth recommending rejection based upon similar arguments to those reflected by some of the reviewers in this current round of reviews in eLife.  Ultimately the managing editor of this first journal took the decision that the review process could not be completed in a timely manner and rejected the manuscript”.  The journal is not named and the earlier reviews are not public, so this is the authors' account alone. ↩

2. 5b.

   Section Scientific Issues:  “In our decision to leave material in place as much as possible, we are expanding upon standard practice to leave witness sections and unexcavated areas for future research. … We believe strongly that our ethical responsibility is to publish the work and the most likely interpretation while leaving as much evidence in place as possible to enable further testing and replication.”  “This being said, we also observe that total exhumation would not resolve the concerns raised by the reviewers.” ↩ ↩

3. 5c.

   Section Scientific Issues:  “These engravings took time and effort and the only evidence for use of the Dinaledi subsystem by any hominin is by H. naledi.  The context leads to the null hypothesis that H. naledi made the marks.”  “We deliberately left out qualifying language so that the title took the form of a testable hypothesis rather than a weak assertation.  Should future work find the engravings were not produced within this time range, then we will restate this hypothesis.”  "Assertation" is the authors' word. ↩

4. 5d.

   Section Scientific Issues:  “We certainly note that if the Dinaledi system had been full of the remains of modern humans, there would have been little doubt that the null hypothesis would have been that this was a cultural space and not a “natural space”.  We therefore respectfully disagree with the reviewers who continue to support the idea that we should approach hominin excavations with the null hypothesis that they will be natural (specifically non-cultural) in origins.” ↩

Berger, Lee R. et al.  “An initial report of circa 241,000- to 335,000-year-old rock engravings and their relation to Homo naledi in the Rising Star cave system, South Africa.”  eLife 12:RP89102.  Jul 22, 2025.  The version of record of the engravings paper, with the final eLife assessment, two reviews and the authors' response published alongside it.  The 2023 version was titled "241,000 to 335,000 Years Old Rock Engravings Made by Homo naledi";  the title was softened for the revision.  No dating of the marks was attempted.

1. 6a.

   Section Results, Panel A:  Panel A, on the southern face of a natural pillar in the Hill Antechamber, carries.  “at least 46 engraved or altered marks we consider artificial”.  Section Results, Panels B and C:  Panels B and C lie on the northern wall.  “within 2 m of the Hill Antechamber burial feature”. ↩

2. 6b.

   Section Discussion:  “The markings that we have identified within the Dinaledi Subsystem are not overlain by naturally forming sedimentary deposition. … No obvious mineral deposition overlaps the engraved features.  Our observations do note that there may be materials added to the surface of the engraved areas, and these may provide an avenue of investigation.”  The same paragraph lists three routes to a date:  markings buried in datable sediment, markings covered by datable mineral formations, and a datable weathering varnish. ↩

3. 6c.

   Section Discussion:  “Thus, at present, the H. naledi skeletal material provides the only information about the chronology of hominin activity in this area of the cave system. … However, we adopt as a conservative hypothesis that the age of these markings is constrained in the same way as the skeletal remains from the Dinaledi Subsystem, between 335 ka and 241 ka.” ↩ ↩

4. 6d.

   Section Discussion:  “Animal claws have a hardness of 2–2.5 on Mohs hardness scale (Rothschild et al., 2013).  Dolomite has a hardness of 3.5–4.5, with Malmani dolomites at the higher end of this scale”. ↩

5. 6e.

   Section eLife assessment:  “This report concerns preliminary findings, and as it stands the study is incomplete, with further work needed in the future to support the claims about the anthropogenic nature, age, and author of the engravings.”  Significance "important", strength "incomplete", the same strength term as in 2023. ↩ ↩

6. 6f.

   Section Reviewer #3:  “In fact the only 'evidence' for the age of the markings is given by the age of the Homo naledi remains, as no attempt at the, admittedly very difficult, perhaps impossible, task of geochronological assessment, has been made.”  “The claims relating to artificiality, age and authorship made here seem entangled, premature and speculative.  Whilst there is no evidence to refute them, there isn't convincing evidence to confirm them.” ↩ ↩

7. 6g.

   Section Reviewer #3:  “Does this mean that Homo naledi took (several?) pointed stone tools down the dark passsageways, used them extensively and, whether worn out or still usable, took them all out again when they left?  Not impossible, of course.  And the lighting?”  The spelling is the reviewer's. ↩

8. 6h.

   Section Reviewer #4:  “My review is brief as the authors state they have made "relatively minimal changes", so most of the comments I made in 2023 still stand.”  “There is no direct or closely associated chronometric dating of the 'rock engravings' or their immediate context, so the age range claimed is unsupported.” ↩ ↩

9. 6i.

   Section Author response:  “Because of this, the revised manuscript represents relatively minimal changes, and all those at the advice of reviewers.”  “Several reviewers discuss the issue of geochronology as applied to these markings.  This is an area of future investigation for us after the publication of this initial report.” ↩

10. 6j.

    Section Author response:  “We have decided it is best for us not to attempt to prove a negative.  It is simple enough to say that there is no evidence for modern humans in this area, while there is abundant evidence of H. naledi there.” ↩

11. 6k.

    Section Author response:  “The list of all explorers and scientific visitors to have entered this portion of the cave system is presented in a table.  We can attest that these people did not make the marks.  More generally, such marks have not been known to be made by cavers in other contexts within southern Africa.”  Section Discussion:  “There is no evidence of modern cavers altering cave walls in such a manner in the Dinaledi Subsystem, or elsewhere in the Rising Star system, and we have detected no evidence of traces of metallic tools in association with the markings.” ↩

Searched on 10 October 2026 for any paper, preprint, conference abstract or dataset reporting hearths, charcoal, soot, burnt bone or a date on them from the Rising Star cave.  Crossref returned 106 records matching "naledi" from June 2022 onward, none on fire except one news item.  OpenAlex was searched by title, abstract and full text, and its full list of works by Lee Berger, John Hawks and Keneiloe Molopyane from October 2022 onward, 66 items, has none.  DataCite, which registers PaleoAnthropology and the preprint servers Crossref misses, and Europe PMC's full-text search returned none.  None of the three 2025 eLife papers cites one;  the only fire reference among them is the news report.⁸  John Hawks's later posts on naledi, through June 2026, do not mention fire.  A search can miss a paper, so this is a statement of what was found and when. ↩ ↩

Fuentes, Agustín et al.  “Meaning-making behavior in a small-brained hominin, Homo naledi, from the late Pleistocene: contexts and evolutionary implications.”  eLife 12:RP89125.  Sep 4, 2025.  An interpretive short report by members of the Rising Star team that takes burial, engraving and fire as given by the companion papers.  It is the only one of the three peer-reviewed papers that mentions fire, and it cites a news report for it.

1. 8a.

   Section Rising star evidence and context:  “There is reported evidence of fire use (hearths and charcoal and smoke scarring of surfaces) in the Dinaledi system (see Bower, 2022, but also see Martinón-Torres et al., 2023), but the age of these occurrences has not been reported yet, so its association with H. naledi is currently correlational.  However, the correlational support is a reasonable hypothesis given there is no evidence across the last decade of investigation of any habitual activity by ancient or recent Homo sapiens in the Dinaledi Subsystem”.  The reference list gives "Bower, 2022" as the Science News article of 2 December 2022. ↩ ↩ ↩

2. 8b.

   Section Rising star evidence and context:  “Recently, Pettit, 2022 laid out the three key criteria for assessing whether or not the Homo naledi remains in the Dinaledi subsystem represent actual funerary behavior: (a) Is there an as-yet unmapped entrance into the Dinaledi Chamber? (b) Is there any evidence of artificial lighting in the cave system, and (c) Is there evidence that it was dead bodies, rather than body parts, that were carried into the chamber? … Articulated skeletal elements do make up a substantive percentage of the H. naledi remains reported in the Dinaledi system, especially in feature 1 and in the Hill Antechamber feature (Berger et al., 2025a). … Therefore, we suggest that the currently available evidence tentatively meets Pettit, 2022 criterion for funerary action.”  The spelling "Pettit" is the paper's. ↩

3. 8c.

   Section Homo naledi behavior in a broader perspective:  “Hominin control of fire in South Africa long predates the Rising Star evidence, with controlled fire indicated in Member 3 at Swartkrans (only ~800 m from the Rising Star Cave), and in Early Stone Age context at Wonderwerk Cave, by one million years ago … While we cannot yet be certain of the exact modes, intensity, duration, and quality of the fires potentially used by H. naledi in the Dinaledi subsystem, it is a strong assumption that they at least provided flickering and moderate intensity light sources.” ↩

4. 8d.

   Section eLife assessment:  “Still, the strength of evidence in this contribution relies on the validity of the conclusions from the two associated papers, which remain actively questioned.”  Significance "valuable", strength "solid", the latter on condition that "the conclusions from the associated papers hold up".  One reviewer, #3, returned for this paper. ↩

Hawks, John.  “Finding ancient fire use in the Rising Star cave system.”  John Hawks, johnhawks.net.  Dec 7, 2022.  A blog post by a co-leader of the excavations, dated six days after Lee Berger announced the fire evidence in a public lecture on 1 December 2022.  It locates the hearths and explains why the team has not simply radiocarbon-dated the charcoal.

1. 9a.

   Paragraph 2:  “The team identified charcoal, burned bone, or other evidence of fire in at least four chambers, widespread from each other in deep parts of the system.  Some of this evidence is from excavations led by Dr. Keneiloe Molopyane in the Dragon's Back Chamber, including concentrations of well-preserved charcoal, ash, and discolored clay that appear to be small hearths.  The excavations also turned up many fragments of animal bone.” ↩ ↩

2. 9b.

   Paragraph 4:  “Besides the charcoal evidence, Lee identified surfaces with discoloration consistent with soot.  Some of this evidence occurs within the Dinaledi Chamber above skeletal remains of Homo naledi.” ↩

3. 9c.

   Paragraph 3:  “In addition to Dragon's Back, in two other deep chambers our exploration has encountered concentrations of charcoal.  Both of these situations are areas where our team has not previously focused any investigations, and one of the chambers has burned animal bone on the cave floor with charcoal.” ↩

4. 9d.

   Paragraph 18:  “Two naledi bones yielded radiocarbon dates between 36,000 and 33,000 BP. … To explain the inconsistency, the team hypothesized that the radiocarbon results reflect contamination by carbon from outside the bones.”  Paragraph 19:  “The point is, finding a young radiocarbon date may not clarify the situation very much.” ↩

Martinón-Torres, María et al.  “No scientific evidence that Homo naledi buried their dead and produced rock art.”  Journal of Human Evolution 195:103464.  2024.  A commentary written against the unrevised 2023 preprints by the leader of the team that published Africa's oldest accepted burial at Panga ya Saidi, a rock-art specialist, a Cradle of Humankind geochronologist who co-authored the 2017 dating paper, and Michael Petraglia.  Places are the section numbers of the accepted manuscript, which has no journal pagination.  Mirror:  Opal.latrobe.edu.au

1. 10a.

   Section 2.1:  “From the evidence available at Rising Star Cave, we infer that the hominin bones are not articulated but scattered (see Berger et al., 2023a: Fig. 4).  In the best-case scenario, we can infer a general spatial association of some isolated skeletal elements and the articulation of some body parts (not bodies) such as an ankle and partial hand and foot articulations”. ↩

2. 10b.

   Section 2.2:  “Unfortunately, only a ca. 10 cm length of the laminated orange-red mud is shown in one of the profiles of a purported pit; therefore, it is not possible to assess the further extension and lateral continuity of this layer.  The visibility of its limits is inexplicably obscured by a large black square holding the scale in both Figures 3A and 3B of Berger et al. (2023a).” ↩

3. 10c.

   Section 2.2:  “The geochemical and textural sedimentary differences mentioned in Berger et al. (2023a) can be related to the obvious fact that they are comparing fossil-bearing vs. non-fossil bearing sediment matrixes … instead of the sediment within vs. outside the purported pit.” ↩

4. 10d.

   Section 2.3:  “it is not possible to rule out the strong likelihood that this stone object is a geofact (Chatters et al., 2022), a natural product of cave wall exfoliation. … The investigators do not demonstrate any of the classic signs of stone tool percussive flaking, such as a striking platform, a bulb of percussion and ripples”. ↩

5. 10e.

   Section 2.4, Fire evidence:  “More importantly, no scientific evidence (e.g., Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, micromorphology, archaeomagnetism) has been presented to indicate the occurrence of in situ burnt material, let alone hearths.  Previously acquired radiocarbon dates obtained by the site investigators on one of the apparent hearths resulted in very young dates (Lee Berger, unpublished data), questioning its association to H. naledi.  Moreover, the occurrence of charcoal is also common in caves, including in South African landscapes, where there are frequent wildfires (Weij et al., 2022) … the possibility of use of fire by H. naledi cannot be minimally considered and remains entirely speculative.”  The manuscript misnumbers this section "1.1". ↩ ↩ ↩

6. 10f.

   Section 4:  “The Rising Star Cave system, also known as Empire of Westminster Cave, has been used by cavers since the 1960s for recreational caving, and the occurrence of survey pegs and arrangement of bone in the chamber indicates that an unknown number of unknown cavers had been into the Dinaledi and related chambers previously (Dirks et al., 2015). … It therefore cannot be ruled out that any potential engravings or fire-use evidence are the work of recent humans in the system.” ↩

7. 10g.

   Section 5:  “We understand that the extraordinary accumulation of hominins and signs of in situ decomposition of bodies or body parts calls attention to the possibility that H. naledi may have engaged in some type of proto-funerary behavior.” ↩

8. 10h.

   Section 5:  “This would be epistemologically equivalent to choosing as a null hypothesis that my house was made by aliens instead of humans.” ↩

Dirks, Paul H. G. M. et al.  “Geological and taphonomic context for the new hominin species Homo naledi from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa.”  eLife 4:e09561.  2015.  The excavating team's first account of the chamber, its access route, its sediments and the bone surfaces, and the origin of the "deliberate body disposal" reading.  It placed the hominin bones in two of its three stratigraphic units, Units 2 and 3;  the 2017 dating paper moved the loose, bone-bearing sediment under Flowstones 1b to 1e from Unit 2 to Unit 3, which put all the hominin bones in one sub-unit.  Mirror:  PMC

1. 11a.

   Section Abstract:  “Preliminary evidence is consistent with deliberate body disposal in a single location, by a hominin species other than Homo sapiens, at an as-yet unknown date.” ↩

2. 11b.

   Section The Rising Star cave system:  “includes 1550 identifiable fossil hominin specimens as well as six bird and several rodent specimens.  Of the 1550 hominin specimens, ∼300 numbered bone fragments were collected from the surface of the Dinaledi Chamber, and ∼1250 numbered fossil specimens were recovered from a small excavation pit in that chamber”. ↩ ↩

3. 11c.

   Section Occupation:  “Thus, if hominins were traveling to the chamber, it is assumed that they would almost certainly have required artificial light.” ↩

4. 11d.

   Section Surface modifications and vertebrate–bone interactions:  “No evidence is noted of vertebrate modifications such as those caused by carnivores, rodents or other hominins. … There is no evidence of stone tool inflicted cuts, scrapes, impact or chop marks (White, 2014). … None of the specimens are burnt (Stiner et al., 1995) or shows signs of trampling other than limited incidental recent breakage by cavers”. ↩

5. 11e.

   Section Transportation:  “We therefore preclude transportation by water as a major taphonomic factor associated with the delivery of skeletal elements into, or within the cave system.” ↩

6. 11f.

   Section Predator accumulation:  “Despite abundant fossil material available for taphonomic study, we have, thus far, found no trace of carnivore damage on the Dinaledi remains.  Nor have we found any trace of carnivore remains or the remains of other likely prey animals. … We consider this very unlikely.” ↩

7. 11g.

   Section Deliberate disposal:  “If individuals were dropped either whole or in part into the present entrance chute to the chamber, then physical entry would not be required.” ↩

8. 11h.

   Section Deliberate disposal:  “Both the mass mortality or death trap scenario (although possibly not involving a single event) and deliberate disposal hypothesis are considered plausible interpretations and require additional investigation.  Based on current evidence, our preferred explanation for the accumulation of H. naledi fossils in the Dinaledi Chamber is deliberate body disposal”. ↩

Wood, Todd C.  “An Evaluation of Homo naledi and "Early" Homo from a Young-Age Creationist Perspective.”  Journal of Creation Theology and Science Series B: Life Sciences 6:14–30.  2016.  Wood's supermatrix baraminology of all named hominins, which places both "early" Homo and H. naledi in the human holobaramin.  Mirror:  Archive.org

1. 12a.

   Page 17:  “Dirks et al. (2015) argue that the assemblage of monospecific bones in this cave indicates intentional burial, a cultural behavior previously known only from Homo sapiens and Neandertals.” ↩

Wise, Kurt P.  “Paleontological Note on Homo naledi.”  Journal of Creation Theology and Science Series B: Life Sciences 6:9–13.  2016.  The most careful young-earth reading of the 2015 taphonomy paper, by a Harvard-trained palaeontologist.  Written before any date existed.  Mirror:  Archive.org

1. 13a.

   Page 12:  “Aside from humans (who carry their own artificial light), no large vertebrate (capable of carrying something the size of H. naledi bodies) is known to travel into the dark inner passages of a cave … All this means that the only reasonable explanation for how the H. naledi bodies got into the Dinaledi Chamber is that they were carried there along a difficult path by humans carrying artificial light.  Most likely, then, the H. naledi themselves are humans, and the Dinaledi Chamber was a burial chamber where the H. naledi people interred their dead.” ↩

2. 13b.

   Page 12:  “Even Dirks et al. conclude that the H. naledi deliberately placed their dead in this inaccessible location.” ↩

Foecke, Kimberly K. et al.  “No Sedimentological Evidence for Deliberate Burial by Homo naledi:  A Case Study Highlighting the Need for Best Practices in Geochemical Studies Within Archaeology and Paleoanthropology.”  PaleoAnthropology 2025(1):94–115.  2025.  Three geochemists and geochronologists, one of whom has dated flowstones in the Cradle caves, re-plot the 2023 preprint's own sediment chemistry.  Written against the 2023 version;  the team's reworked chemistry postdates it.

1. 14a.

   Page 99:  “There were only three samples taken within Feature 1 (group SB, with two samples being subsamples of a single sampling location), and they fall entirely within the range of variation of the Dinaledi Floor (DF) samples (samples taken from the sediment above the feature).” ↩

2. 14b.

   Page 94, section Abstract:  “The authors do not meet minimum reporting standards for their geochemical methods, a problem stretching back to 2015 through the published material from this research team.”  “In conclusion, we argue that from a sedimentological standpoint there is no evidence of deliberate burial of H. naledi remains.” ↩

Pettitt, Paul, and Bernard Wood.  “What we know and do not know after the first decade of Homo naledi.”  Nature Ecology & Evolution 8(9):1579–1583.  2024.  A ten-year review by the Durham archaeologist of burial and the senior hominin taxonomist at George Washington University.  Page numbers below are those of the accepted manuscript, which runs from 1 to 10 and is headed with a working title, "Making sense of the first decade of Homo naledi", and the authors in the other order.  Mirror:  Archive.org

1. 15a.

   Page 4 of the accepted manuscript:  “Arguments in favour of deliberate burial of at least one individual rely not on a demonstrable grave cutting but on the disturbance of sediment, an apparent but statistically insignificant distinction between sediments within and without an assumed but invisible ‘grave cutting’, and very limited skeletal articulation.  All of these phenomena can be explained by either disturbance through low-energy water action and/or the process of decay of a corpse.” ↩

2. 15b.

   Page 5 of the accepted manuscript:  “Marks like this, which are made when tectonic activity causes sharp rocks in breccia to score the cave wall, are visible in nearby caves (Martinón-Torres et al. 2023). … a more likely explanation is that this ‘artefact’ is a fortuitously associated spall from the roof of the cave”. ↩

3. 15c.

   Page 4 of the accepted manuscript:  “The evidence for fire, deliberate burial and symbolic art is far from compelling.  The authors admit to uncertainty about the mode and intensity of any fire used by H. naledi in the Dinaledi subsystem (Fuentes et al. 2023, 5) and we must assume this speculative for now.” ↩

Egeland, Charles P. et al.  “Hominin skeletal part abundances and claims of deliberate disposal of corpses in the Middle Pleistocene.”  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115(18):4601–4606.  2018.  Machine-learning classification of which bones survive at Sima de los Huesos and the Dinaledi Chamber against fourteen reference assemblages, including deliberate burials, scavenged human corpses and leopard-eaten baboons.  Mirror:  PMC

1. 16a.

   Section Discussion:  “These methods also consistently cluster the SH and DC assemblages with the remains of scavenged human corpses, leopard-consumed baboons, and baboons that died naturally within a cave.”  Section Results:  “although in this case DC is the most weakly classified assemblage.”  DC is the Dinaledi Chamber and SH is Sima de los Huesos.  The second sentence is about the four-group k-means analysis. ↩

2. 16b.

   Section Abstract:  “Our results indicate that nonanthropogenic agents and abiotic processes cannot yet be ruled out as significant contributors to the ultimate condition of both collections.  This finding does not falsify hypotheses of deliberate disposal for the SH and DC corpses, but does indicate that the data also support partially or completely nonanthropogenic formational histories.” ↩

eLife.  “eLife assessment and public reviews of "241,000 to 335,000 Years Old Rock Engravings Made by Homo naledi in the Rising Star Cave system, South Africa", reviewed preprint version 1.”  eLife.  Jul 12, 2023.  The editors' assessment and four anonymous reviews of the engravings paper under its original title.  Two of the four reviewers, #3 and #4, returned in 2025.

1. 17a.

   Section eLife assessment:  States that the study.  “is incomplete, and the evidence presented does not support the claims about the anthropogenic nature, age, and author of the engravings”.  and that all reviewers agreed four things were required:  flagging the results as preliminary, demonstrating the markings are artificial, establishing a chronology, and associating them with H. naledi. ↩

Bower, Bruce.  “Homo naledi may have lit fires in underground caves at least 236,000 years ago.”  Science News.  Dec 2, 2022.  The news report of Lee Berger's Carnegie Institution lecture of 1 December 2022, which is the first public statement of the fire claim.  As of September 2025 it is the only citation the team gives for fire in a peer-reviewed paper.

1. 18a.

   Paragraph 2:  “Researchers have found remnants of small fireplaces and sooty wall and ceiling smudges in passages and chambers throughout South Africa’s Rising Star cave complex, paleoanthropologist Lee Berger announced in a December 1 lecture hosted by the Carnegie Institution of Science in Washington, D.C.” ↩

2. 18b.

   Paragraph 4:  “H. naledi presumably lit the blazes in the caves since remains of no other hominids have turned up there, the team says.  But the researchers have yet to date the age of the fire remains.  And researchers outside Berger’s group have yet to evaluate the new finds.” ↩

3. 18c.

   Paragraph 7:  “Last August, Berger climbed down a narrow shaft and examined two underground chambers where H. naledi fossils had been found.  He noticed stalactites and thin rock sheets that had partly grown over older ceiling surfaces.  Those surfaces displayed blackened, burned areas and were also dotted by what appeared to be soot particles, Berger said.” ↩

4. 18d.

   Paragraph 8:  “Meanwhile, expedition codirector and Wits paleoanthropologist Keneiloe Molopyane led excavations of a nearby cave chamber.  There, the researchers uncovered two small fireplaces containing charred bits of wood, and burned bones of antelopes and other animals.  Remains of a fireplace and nearby burned animal bones were then discovered in a more remote cave chamber where H. naledi fossils have been found, Berger said.” ↩

Bradshaw Foundation.  “The Future of Exploration in the Greatest Age of Exploration.”  Bradshaw Foundation, bradshawfoundation.com.  Dec 2022.  The unsigned advance announcement of Lee Berger's Carnegie lecture of 1 December 2022, written in the team's voice.  It is the fullest written statement of the fire claim.  It is a press announcement, with no data, no dates and no author.  Paragraphs are counted from the one beginning "The discovery of Homo naledi in 2013", leaving out photo captions.

1. 19a.

   Paragraph 3:  “For nine years, the team operated in these deep spaces with its leader aboveground.  Berger has stated many times that he would never be able to enter these spaces. … In an expedition into the Rising Star Cave in August of this year led by Lee Berger and Keneiloe Molopyane, Lee attempted and succeeded in getting through the Chute labyrinth and into the Hill Antechamber and Dinaledi Chamber.” ↩

2. 19b.

   Paragraph 5:  “Over the coming days, the team found more evidence of these fires, small fireplaces with burnt bone, and even a fragment of Homo naledi cranium.”  Said of the excavation in the Dragon's Back Chamber. ↩

3. 19c.

   Paragraph 6:  “As Lee has commented, “We had blinded ourselves by thinking that evidence of fire was not there, but once our eyes were opened, the evidence for fire throughout the system wasn’t difficult to see at all, it was everywhere.”” ↩

4. 19d.

   Paragraph 7:  “It may take several years of scientific work to fully document the use of fire in the many chambers where it has been identified, including a regime of dating and excavation of new areas.” ↩

Bradshaw Foundation.  “Homo naledi.”  Bradshaw Foundation, bradshawfoundation.com.  n.d.  Retrieved Oct 10, 2026.  An unsigned overview page, written after December 2022, with photographs credited to John Hawks and Lee Berger.  It cites no sources.

1. 20a.

   Section Photo caption, the "Neo" skull:  “Charcoal dating to c18,000 ybp was discovered in the Lesedi Chamber.”  Section Main text:  “Although charcoal had been noted previously as being present in the Lesedi Chamber of the Rising Star system, it was not associated directly with Homo naledi at the time of its description.”  The Lesedi Chamber is a second naledi locality in the same cave system.  The page does not say who dated the charcoal or where the date was reported. ↩

Berger, Lee, and John Hawks.  Almost Human: The Astonishing Tale of Homo naledi and the Discovery That Changed Our Human Story.  National Geographic.  2017.  The excavators' popular account of the discovery, written before any fire evidence was claimed.

1. 21a.

   Page 205:  “Still, if naledi was repeatedly using the Rising Star cave system to deposit bodies, they may have spent time in other parts of the system for other purposes.  We might find some evidence of habitation or other activity if we investigated other parts of the cave.  If they were using the dark zone, they might have had light.  That meant we might find evidence of fire.” ↩

O'Micks, Jean, and Timothy L. Clarey.  “Book Review of Almost Human, the Astonishing Tale of Homo naledi and the Discovery that Changed our Human Story, by Lee Berger and John Hawks.”  Answers Research Journal 10:187–194.  2017.  A creationist review of the excavators' book, by the two authors who hold naledi to be an ape.  Mirror:  Assets.answersresearchjournal.org

1. 22a.

   Page 191:  “But, one has to wonder why no signs of fire and why no stone tools have been found in the cave system to date.  If H. naledi were using this site to dispose of their dead, there should have been some smoke marks on the ceilings or soot in the passageways.  They would have needed a light source to make it through the long tortuous pathway to the Dinaledi Chamber.” ↩

Rupe, Christopher, and John Sanford.  Contested Bones.  FMS Publications.  2017.  A young-earth survey of the hominin fossils.  Chapter 10 treats naledi as an inbred human population and the chamber as a ritual burial place;  a section of chapter 12 answers the 2017 date.  Page numbers are those of the 2017 first edition;  the 2019 printing is paginated differently.

1. 23a.

   Page 206:  “Only human speech, language, and cognition can explain why the Naledi bones were deliberately deposited in the Dinaledi Chamber (suggesting belief in an afterlife).  The only way Naledi could have carried their dead deep into the Rising Star cave was if they had fire”. ↩