Lee Berger and John Hawks (Penguin Random House)
UNTIL now, the most horrific journey of scientific discovery I had read about was by Antarctic explorer Apsley Cherry-Garrard in his 1922 memoir . He describes, in dreadful detail, an expedition to collect Emperor penguin eggs in the dark Antarctic winter. Temperatures plummeted below -56掳C (-70掳F), his tent blew away and he barely made it back alive.
But to me, a journey undertaken last year by palaeoanthropologist is worse, as he ventured into the Rising Star cave system near Johannesburg, South Africa. Full of the same vivid detail as The Worst Journey in the World, we hear his story in Cave of Bones: A true story of discovery, adventure, and human origins by Berger himself and co-author at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Claustrophobes, look away now.
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The story begins in 2013, when two cavers squeezed through an incredibly tight passage in the cave system to discover a bounty of fossil bones in what is now known as the Dinaledi chamber. These turned out to belong to a new hominin we call Homo naledi. This diminutive species may have lived relatively recently, up to around 250,000 years ago, and had a strange mix of primitive and modern features, with a brain size comparable to that of a chimp.
This discovery, alongside evidence that H. naledi seemed to have deliberately interred its dead, revolutionised our understanding of human evolution. Until last year, however, Berger was only able to observe excavations in the Dinaledi chamber, where more than a thousand fossils of H. naledi have been found, via computer screen. The passage leading to this chamber, called the Chute, was that those who could enter had to be small and slight.
Berger decided to risk what the book calls the 鈥渄readed 19cm squeeze鈥� after losing 20 kilograms, even though, at 1.88 metres tall, it would still be tough. When he finally made it into the chamber, however, his efforts were immediately rewarded as he saw evidence of fire everywhere: soot marks, charcoal and burnt bones. This, say the authors, shows H. naledi used fire to find a way into the cave system 鈥� a skill thought to be beyond a hominin with such a small brain. 鈥淭he journey had been horrible, but I had鈥� learned so much. The pain and fear were already worth it,鈥� he writes.
Equally remarkably, on the walls Berger spotted engraved marks such as ladder shapes, triangles and crosses. Formal analysis has yet to take place, but Berger and Hawks are convinced they are by H. naledi 鈥� another skill thought to be limited to large-brained Homo sapiens and Neanderthals.
The Rising Star cave system is 鈥渓ike a naledi spaceship, access to an alien world in the midst of our own鈥�, say the authors. Their book certainly conjures up the feeling of being in this inaccessible place.
Berger isn鈥檛 short on charisma, but he is also a controversial figure among archaeologists for his unconventional approach, such as his penchant for announcing major discoveries ahead of final academic analysis. 鈥淲e have faced serious skepticism on this journey,鈥� he writes. Cave of Bones doesn鈥檛 get into the details of these controversies 鈥� perhaps rightly, as the book is firmly aimed at the general reader, not academics. Amusingly, Berger proves the point himself with a cliffhanger at the end of the book, hinting that we may soon have some H. naledi DNA.
This would be a prize indeed. Meanwhile, after squeezing into the Dinaledi chamber, Berger had to face the even more terrible challenge of wriggling out, this time without the assistance of gravity. He describes 鈥渉anging, trapped in a situation where my body simply wouldn鈥檛 fit through the next tight space. This squeeze was the worst situation鈥� I had ever been in my life.鈥� Thinking he might die, he tried to dislocate his kneecap to lever his leg up.
Somehow, he made it 鈥� even he isn鈥檛 sure how. Frankly, I would prefer my chances in an Antarctic blizzard.
