There is substantive evidence that approximately 250–350,000 years ago, Homo naledi, a small-brained hominin, transported deceased conspecifics into difficult to access locations in the Rising Star Cave system in what would, in humans, be described as a mortuary behavior (Berger et al., 2025a)...currently available evidence tentatively
meets Pettit, 2022 criterion for funerary action. As it stands, the whole of the evidence supports the hypothesis that the H. naledi remains in the Dinaledi subsystem are one of the two earliest examples of a mortuary practice in a hominin, and potentially offer the earliest evidence of multiple interments, post-depositional reworking, and thus funerary actions by a hominin.... the hominin emotional, socio-cognitive niche is more significant than previously thought
Evidence of ochre use occurs in archaeological contexts across Africa and the Levant prior to 350,000 years ago,
a time when H. sapiens has not yet been identified there (Ronen et al., 1998; Watts et al., 2016;
Dapschauskas et al., 2022). The control of fire by hominins is demonstrated in Early and Middle
Pleistocene contexts where most researchers accept that H. erectus was present (Brain and Sillent,
1988; Alperson-Afil, 2008; Goren-Inbar et al., 2004; Hlubik et al., 2019; MacDonald et al., 2021).
Mortuary evidences are claimed in association with hominins that predate or are not H. sapiens
(Carbonell and Mosquera, 2006). These geographically and temporally varied instances could be
the result of taphonomic or dating issues (Püschel et al., 2021), but it is likely, given the increasing
diverse temporal and geographic discovery of these behaviors and material that such complex
behaviors associated with shared meaning were manifested by multiple populations/species of the
genus Homo in addition to Homo sapiens. But how important was brain size to the evolution of these
behaviors?
There is substantive evidence that approximately 250–350,000 years ago, Homo naledi, a small-
brained hominin, transported deceased conspecifics into difficult to access locations in the Rising Star
Cave system in what would, in humans, be described as a mortuary behavior (Berger et al., 2025a).
The use of deep areas of the Rising Star cave system for these behaviors implies considerable social
collaboration, coordination, and planning. In the context of the subterranean Dinaledi Subsystem,
these activities likely also required a light source, again implicating a depth of planning and coor-
dination. What stands out as a possible contradiction is that Homo naledi fossil crania are small.
With endocranial volumes ranging between 450 ml and 610 ml, this species overlaps in brain size
with australopithecines, having smaller brains on average than Homo erectus and much smaller than
modern humans or Neanderthals (See Figure 2 and section Reconsidering brain size).
The information from H. naledi cannot be considered in isolation; it joins the broad array of data
for meaning-making in Pleistocene hominins (Kissel and Fuentes, 2018; Kissel and Fuentes, 2021;
Malafouris, 2013, Colagè and d’Errico, 2025). These behaviors reflect social groups that maintained
solidarity, social coordination, and cooperation in a mode not evident in living great apes but charac-
teristic of contemporary humans. Here, we offer an analysis of the reported complex behavior in the
small- brained Homo naledi and suggest a suite of implications this has for our understanding of the
relationships between brain size, cognition, complex behavior, and the evolution of the genus Homo
across the Pleistocene
https://elifesciences.org/articles/89125.pdf
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 (Brain and Sillent, 1988; Brain, 1993; Berna et al., 2012).
Both Paranthropus and early Homo were present in South Africa during that period and occurred in association with combustion evidence (Brain and Sillent, 1988; Brain, 1993). Additionally, cave use by hominins across multiple locations during the period of H. naledi and earlier (e.g. Wonderwerk in
South Africa and Bruniquel in France) also involved use of fire (Berna et al., 2012; Jaubert et al.,
2016). 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.
Use of ochre and other pigments is another category of behavior linked to meaning-making
(Dapschauskas et al., 2022; Kissel and Fuentes, 2018). Material evidence of pigments carried or used by hominins has been found at several sites earlier than the Dinaledi Subsystem, including sites within Africa, as well as within southwest Asia and south Asia (Figure 1). Non-utilitarian objects that were transported by hominins into sites include some with physical or iconic resemblance to human figures, including objects from Berekhat Ram, Israel (Goren- Inbar, 1986), and Tan-Tan, Morocco
(Bednarik, 2003), both from the later Middle Pleistocene.
This pattern of evidence shows that H. naledi and other populations of the genus Homo overlap temporally in the expression of meaning-making behavior.
Frontiers in Psychology 01 frontiersin.org
Linguistic capacity was present in the Homo sapiens population 135 thousand years ago
Recent genome-level studies on the divergence of early Homo sapiens, based
on single nucleotide polymorphisms, suggest that the initial population division
within H. sapiens from the original stem occurred approximately 135 thousand
years ago. Given that this and all subsequent divisions led to populations with full
linguistic capacity, it is reasonable to assume that the potential for language must
have been present at the latest by around 135 thousand years ago, before the first
division occurred. Had linguistic capacity developed later, we would expect to find
some modern human populations without language, or with some fundamentally
different mode of communication. Neither is the case.
the original divergence of the Khoisan lineage took place at about 135kya (± 20kya), with the
divergence times of other African language lineages lying subsequent to this time.
widespread appearance of suggestive symbolically mediated behaviors,
such as the Blombos cave ochres with regular-pattern incisions
(Henshilwood et al., 2004; Henshilwood et al., 2009) and the geometric
patterns engraved on ostrich eggshells found at two nearby locations,
the Diepkloof (Texier et al., 2010; Texier et al., 2013) and Klipdrift
Shelters (Henshilwood et al., 2014). While complex behaviors such as
burial of the dead and occasional bodily decoration do appear to have
occurred sporadically among Neanderthals and other extinct hominins
(Frayer et al., 2006; García-Diez et al., 2013; Rodriguez-Vidal et al.,
2014; Peresani et al., 2014; Joordens et al., 2015; Radovčić et al., 2015;
Hoffmann et al., 2018; Majkić et al., 2018a, 2018b), it appears to have
been only within H. sapiens, and subsequent to about around 100kya,
that such behaviors eventually became systematized across the
population (Tattersall, 2012, 2017, 2018; Wadley, 2021). The indicators
concerned include such features as the use of pigments (Henshilwood
et al., 2011), the employment of pierced marine shells for ornaments
and body decorations (Henshilwood et al., 2004; Vanhaeren et al.,
2006; d’Errico et al., 2009a), the engraving of non-figurative motifs,
complex technologies (Powell et al., 2009; Grove, 2016) and ultimately
the earliest representational objects (Henshilwood et al., 2018).
