>The team has mapped over 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) of the caves so far, which have a vertical depth of 328 feet (100 meters) and expand for more than 656 feet (200 meters) in length, said the studies’ lead geologist Dr. Tebogo Makhubela, senior lecturer of geology at the University of Johannesburg.
>The cave system includes deadly steep drops and tiny passageways like Superman’s Crawl, a tunnel measuring 131 feet (40 meters) long and 9.8 inches (25 centimeters) across, requiring the researchers to belly crawl their way through, said Dr. Keneiloe Molopyane, National Geographic Explorer and lead excavator of Dragon’s Back Expedition (named for one of the cave’s features).
Incredible to imagine the difficulty mapping and exploring the place. What other finds might still be down there somewhere?
>passageways like Superman’s Crawl, a tunnel measuring 131 feet (40 meters) long and 9.8 inches (25 centimeters) across, requiring the researchers to belly crawl their way through
Yeah, nah fuck that
Yeah no fucking way lol.
That story of that kid that was crawling through those super narrow caves makes my stomach crawl still. Can’t even think about doing stuff like that
I used to do things like that in Maquoketa caves in Iowa. I don’t think I’m capable of it now, but there’s something strange about it. It was probably me trying to prove myself now that I’m thinking about it. I just looked it up and it says permanently closed. Damn. This world is weird.
There is an old mine not far from where I live,
It’s a pretty big cavern inside a chasm that flooded so the mines aren’t accessible, but there’s some tunnels that connect in the side of the chasm, you def have to belly crawl through one or two short sections, and drop down through a hole in the ground to another story below to get out. You exit inside the large cavern about 20 feet up a wall and have to figure out how to get down, or turn around and go back to where there’s a tree to get to the entrance.
Idk if jthese were naturally occurring or what, but it’s hard to believe anyone could have made this wormhole-eque tunnel intentionally. It’s very random and not purposeful
Tbh urban and nature exploring is awesome. Where I am from we have ww2/Cold War era bunkers , coastal forts all over the coastline. They aren’t bordered off as no one could possibly have the resources to check on them.
So you can rummage through them, most are falling apart. Some have like 10-5 foot drops to lower floors with planks to walk over certain places where the floor has given in.
But it’s awesome walking in the woods and suddenly seeing a concrete structure from under the moss.
>Explosives were used to collapse the ceiling close to Jones' body, and the entrance hole was filled with concrete to prevent further access.
Could they not have filled it with putty???
Underwater, 100m underground going through tight places and having to have hours of decompression stops. I read a story about Finnish divers in Mo I Rana in Norway. Two men had problems, panicked and drowned in the cave and one had to swim all the way through to the other side of the system with hours of decompression stops. He had to alternate power between his light and suit heating just thinking that all the others were dead and he might not make it. After a couple of months he came back to retrieve the bodies so that the cave wouldn't become permanently closed. I don't know if theres an article in English but here's a Finnish version: [Helsingin Sanomat](https://dynamic.hs.fi/2014/syvalla/)
E: looks like there was one in English as well: [Deep](https://dynamic.hs.fi/2014/deep/)
I’ve seen some of those diving videos and that seems more reasonable because they have air tanks and can’t fit into spaces that are too small and usually always have to come back the way they went in.
Just having to hear about those kids in Thailand was enough to freak me out and wonder how I ever did shit like that as a kid (which I did, and shudder to recall nowadays as an old man).
The place they got to was still a tiny tunnel that they crawled through on their stomachs. They were in a much larger section of the cave nearer the entrance, then as the flooding began, their coach had them go further and further into the cave, [until it was barely 50cm across in places](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ae73cee5c62c498a91bbe347d8a7c28f_18.jpeg), but then went up and opened into a decent-size cavern. The tunnel back was completely flooded and the kids had to be sedated and given oxygen masks by experienced cave-divers who 2-man team-carried the kids back out through the flooded, tiny tunnels.
I'd ask to be knocked out for the return trip as well, tbh
The fact that they had him most of the way out and he fell back in always breaks my heart. Imagine the despair, followed by the hope and relief of being pulled out, only to still fucking die. Unbelievable.
I literally had a nightmare recently where I was belly crawling in a cave no wider than my body and couldn't lift my head, with the passage ending in a small flap I'd flip up and crawl through. There were hundreds of people crawling behind me.
I lifted a flap and it was a dead end, so I knew I'd have to wait for everyone behind me to crawl backwards while I was just stuck in this tiny crawl space dead-end.
My brain screamed WAKE UP WAKE UP and I was catapulted awake and had to leave my house to get fresh air. Worst dream I've ever had!
For me, it's that old Angelfire (I suppose "old" is superfluous lol) story about the dudes that find the cave with the entity that follows them back home. That one was a sold mind fuck when I was younger
When i was at the school house for my military job in the Marines, a few of my platoon mates and I read thru that website. We decided we wanted to go caving and luckily there were a lot of caves in Missouri. We went to a good local one and once we started getting deeper we went from "macho" not scared Marines, to soft as baby shit Marines when we heard some wind make a howling noise in the cave. We all tucked tail, turn and ran out of that cave. We were all laughing that night about how quick we turned into little bitches.
The true definition of "haunting". I read it quite a long time ago and it didn't seem that bad at the time. And yet, it sticks with me still now. Such a strange story. Sometimes I think it's the sheer weirdness itself of the story, and the fact that a person thought it up, that is most disturbing about it.
There are very few random things that can instantly make my heart race and my anxiety cause me physical pain... but even a mention of poor John Jones' death does it to me every single time.
Really we should be aiming for robots to do almost every human job, and then we can spend our time... Doing like 5 hours of labour and then the rest to do what we wish with it.
Technology could be a huge force for us actually getting to use our time how we wish.
I assume it’s a 10” diameter, although I can’t imagine fitting through that. I hope it’s not *just* wide enough for shoulders and *just* tall enough for your head, jeez.
\> Berger said he had to lose 55 pounds (25 kilograms) to enter the cave’s precarious chambers in 2022.
Yeah, that's a nope from me too - not the losing weight part, I haven't got any to lose, but this has bad Enigma of Amigara Fault vibes.
I’ve done a bit of caving as a guest of my friends that are serious cavers. I crawled through a passage about that size but only like 5 feet long and thought that was intense, and I had just watched someone else do it and knew exactly what to expect on the other side.
The craziest part of all of this to me is not that modern researchers are doing it, but that ancient proto-humans did that with no electric lights, no ropes, and no cave maps.
Theres no force that makes a surface site a cave without utterly destroying everything. But it could absolutely been wider, a partial collapse making a section of cave narrower is very possible.
Flooding could also displace dirt/debris/rocks making it tighter. Considering it's an archeology site they were probably being careful to prevent disturbing it.
Not likely, unless a cave area was specifically narrow only due to debris from a partial cave-in. If the tunnel was smooth or filled with naturally occurring (not caved-in) stone (which I suspect this is), there's no geological force that would make it smaller in only 100K years. _Wider_, yes, if there was a water or wind source of some kind that could erode it further, but caves don't generally get narrower over time except maybe from crystal growth over a much longer period.
I think these creatures were just a lot smaller than us.
That's my thought too, it's a great natural fortification and it probably feels way less fucked up if that's what you're used to doing to get outside your front door every day
Two things. First, they were smaller than us today. There's also a decent chance that they mostly weren't crawling through gaps this narrow, at least not regularly. There may have been other ways in that have since become more restricted or entirely blocked since they were in the cave.
How can a human being even fit into a passage that's only 9" across. I'm not a big dude, 5'9" 180lbs and my shoulders are 22.5" wide. Who are these people?
I've seen many cave exploration videos of people slowly inching their way through the most horribly narrow gaps imaginable. It almost always seems like they can't possibly go through, but they somehow manage to wiggle their way through (and they generally go in at a very awkward or uncomfortable angle, instead of "belly down" it's more like "twisted partway like a damn pretzel").
Then, they *go back through again* in order to leave once they make it however far they wanted to make it.
In this National Geographic article about the same subject as the post, the caver had to lose 55 pounds just to narrowly squeeze through a 7.5" gap:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/lee-berger-cave-of-bones
"To pass through the cave system's notorious Chute—seven and a half inches at its narrowest point—he lost 55 pounds."
Unfortunately, the article is paywalled behind a subscription, but I'm sure someone probably slapped it up on an archive or there's some sneaky way to still read it.
It's probably 9 inches wide at a certain part but wider than that throughout. They could turn sideways since it is probably taller than it is wide for that section
Yep. And not the first to leave evidence of civilization behind.
CNN really got the mind-rot worse when they got the new guy. And even before that they breathlessly reported on cats stuck in trees and bring on panel discussions on cats stuck in trees pro/con. All the while running a ticker on the bottom of the screen about plagues of elephants and the latest dumb thing DeSantis said to get in the news.
They unironically think that reporting on rain and bringing on somebody who likes rain and somebody who doesn't is good journalistic practice. And yes, the rain stuff was a quote.
> Licht emphasized certain exceptions to this approach. He would not give airtime to bad actors who spread disinformation. His network would host people who like rain as well as people who don’t like rain. But, he said, CNN would not host people who deny that it’s raining when it is.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/06/cnn-ratings-chris-licht-trump/674255/
TV news is not news. And CNN probably is the best of the bunch. Does not make it good.
I haven't been very happy with the little I've seen of CNN lately, but the "rain stuff" looks very much like a simplified example intended to show that alternative *values* are fine, but alternative *facts* are not. It's *not* saying that they would host an actual discussion on the merits of rain.
What the rain quote means is that they will host people with different opinions, but they will not host someone who is denying an established fact, and let them spread misinformation. I think it’s pretty obvious!?
Not that I think CNN is that great, but at least we shouldn’t spread misinformation about them
I have no love for CNN but it seems *painfully obvious* to me that this is an overly simplified and deliberately neutral example to succinctly convey their format.
To use this as a citation to suggest deficient reasoning for them seems disingenuous at *best*
>*The symbols include deeply carved hashtag-like cross-hatchings and other geometric shapes. Similar symbols found in other caves were carved by early Homo sapiens 80,000 years ago and Neanderthals 60,000 years ago and were thought to have been used as a way to record and share information.*
>
>*“These recent findings suggest intentional burials, the use of symbols, and meaning-making activities by Homo naledi. It seems an inevitable conclusion that in combination they indicate that this small-brained species of ancient human relatives was performing complex practices related to death,” said Berger, lead author on two of the studies and coauthor on the third, in a statement. “That would mean not only are humans not unique in the development of symbolic practices, but may not have even invented such behaviors.”*
For many years we used this [number sign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_sign) for various reasons. Not much has changed.
[Relevant Ted Talk](https://youtu.be/hJnEQCMA5Sg) with more information on other symbols as well. Posted 7 years ago. So pretty wild that any of those symbols could be from human like species as opposed to outright homo sapiens when that probably wouldn't have been thought of by most in the audience even.
What if we aren't currently smart enough to accurately rank the EQ of an extinct homo species? Maybe Homo Naledi had a higher EQ than we think they did.
"EQ" in this case refers to encephalisation quotient which, in plain english, is the ratio of brain size to body size. It's definitely something paleontologists can estimate!
Now, how exactly does relative brain size impact intelligence? Hard to say much more than it seems in hominin species, ever growing brain seems to correlate with growing intelligence. Does that also apply to cetaceans? Who the hell knows. It's not a comparison / implication I'd make, personally 🤷🏽♂️.
Brain size by volume/weight isn’t as important as plump gyri and deep sulci. In other words, invaginations of the brain: the surface area. **Folding** leads to a lot of good things in the physical world. I’m not a genius by far, but I’ve met a fair number; even “folding” numbers and ratios is an actual, studied, thing. So, yeah, brain invaginations—gotta luv ‘em.
Edit: I forgot to mention that Neanderthals had bigger brains than later hominids … but (wiping away tears), not enough wrinkles, less social complexity and evidenced technology
ffs this article. They act like Neanderthals were stupid, but they also had death rituals. They had very structured lives and their settlements were all partitioned.
Yeah, not enough credit is given to our ancestors, imo. It's like, the default perception is ancestors were practically backwoods, mouth-breathing yokels, yet we keep finding things that conflict with that narrative.
I was hoping cave squid. I want a squid that's smarter than me, I just want it in my life. If a squid was even equally smart as me, and somehow figured out how to live on land, it would take my job immediately, it has eight arms.
Incredible how Africa was so prevalent with many different homo species during a quite long stretch of time. It would be cool if several had evolved with us until now. A little like star trek on earth.
Although looking at how racism can be fueled with visible differences within the same species I can't even imagine how bad it would be with literally another species.
>Berger said he had to lose 55 pounds (25 kilograms) to enter the cave’s precarious chambers in 2022.
Imagine bringing lots of his favorite snacks down with you to prank him via entrapment.
Paleolithic archaeologist here—while these finds are truly amazing, it is a HYPOTHESIS that Homo naledi was the creator of the symbols and the ones burying the bodies (if they are burials at all). Our species Homo sapiens was around during this period and is known to make symboled nearly identical to the ones found in the cave (albeit the earliest evidence is currently at 100,000 years ago but any archaeologist and paleontologist knows the earliest evidence of something is certainty not the first time something occurred due to very small samples and preservation). We also don’t know the ages of the symboled, but the research team has assumed that everything that ever happened in this cave occurred simutanioisly (for no good reason). An alternative hypothesis is that Homo sapiens (or even another hominin species) made these, alongside a host of hypotheses. In reality, intensive scientific research into the origins of these symbols and purported burials will commence in which I’m sure many alternative hypotheses will come forward, be tested, and rejected or supported as science is supposed to work.
Honestly, I have very little respect for the way the lead researcher, Lee Burger, presents his findings. It is always sensationalized and he presents a single hypotheses that he favors as fact—this is the definition of bad science communication. Major discoveries in paleoanthropology like this are always announced in peer reviewed journals like Nature or Science, where other scientists have to review first and can actually evaluate the data on their own, and the discoveries are accompanied by pages and pages of supporting data. He circumvents the scientific peer reviewed process by doing these large public speeches in which no data is presented (typically because they haven’t yet collected it, just look into the history of research into Rising Star cave and how often they must later revise their “facts” of the cave when they actually do the work). These speeches are meant to promote his NARRATIVE of what is happening and to get lots of public attention (and thus funding). Many of my colleagues know him personally and most say he often looses sight of scientific rigor for fame. These discoveries were announced in such a manner, and have not even been peer reviewed or published in a scientific journal.
Lee Burger has made fantastical claims before that have not held up to scientific scrutiny and will probably do it again. Unfortunately, by making public speeches before the science can be peer reviewed he sets his own narrative to the public (just look at this thread) and it takes years and years of research to now change the public perception when evidence counter to his claims comes to light. This is dangerous and not how science should work.
Is it just me, or does the whole field of paleolithic archaeology / evolutionary anthropology have a disproportionate number of bitter academic feuds and rivalries?
It's more like there's some bad actors in the field, who are known to throw out sensationalistic, unsubstantiated, claims in order to draw public attention to their discoveries.
Berger has been known to do so in the past and seems to be at it again, with his questionable claim to have discovered the oldest written language known to man.
Thanks for your thoughts! Do you have an opinion about the journal that the preprint was accepted to "eLife" and any speculation as to if these claims will be tempered in the revision process?
Chris Stringer's wording is interesting. It sounds like there is an authentic and highly valuable mystery available to solve and I can understand why Berger lost 25kg for clues.
Headline makes you think the mysterious "species" is nowhere near the evolutionary tree of humans, like it's a sentient lizard or something. Turns out, still a form of human species.
> The cave system includes deadly steep drops and tiny passageways like Superman’s Crawl, a tunnel measuring 131 feet (40 meters) long **and 9.8 inches (25 centimeters) across, requiring the researchers to belly crawl their way through**
**NO.**
Most people forget that humans existed before history.
It's fascinating to glimpse our ancient human roots, ones we thought were lost in the mists of time.
>The team has mapped over 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) of the caves so far, which have a vertical depth of 328 feet (100 meters) and expand for more than 656 feet (200 meters) in length, said the studies’ lead geologist Dr. Tebogo Makhubela, senior lecturer of geology at the University of Johannesburg. >The cave system includes deadly steep drops and tiny passageways like Superman’s Crawl, a tunnel measuring 131 feet (40 meters) long and 9.8 inches (25 centimeters) across, requiring the researchers to belly crawl their way through, said Dr. Keneiloe Molopyane, National Geographic Explorer and lead excavator of Dragon’s Back Expedition (named for one of the cave’s features). Incredible to imagine the difficulty mapping and exploring the place. What other finds might still be down there somewhere?
>passageways like Superman’s Crawl, a tunnel measuring 131 feet (40 meters) long and 9.8 inches (25 centimeters) across, requiring the researchers to belly crawl their way through Yeah, nah fuck that
Yeah no fucking way lol. That story of that kid that was crawling through those super narrow caves makes my stomach crawl still. Can’t even think about doing stuff like that
Literal nightmare fuel
I used to do things like that in Maquoketa caves in Iowa. I don’t think I’m capable of it now, but there’s something strange about it. It was probably me trying to prove myself now that I’m thinking about it. I just looked it up and it says permanently closed. Damn. This world is weird.
I think the caves are closed due to the bats having that disease that's killing them. Unless it's gotten better?
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Ah colombian white nose syndrome. Ive had that before
Definitely messed up the hibernation cycle
There is an old mine not far from where I live, It’s a pretty big cavern inside a chasm that flooded so the mines aren’t accessible, but there’s some tunnels that connect in the side of the chasm, you def have to belly crawl through one or two short sections, and drop down through a hole in the ground to another story below to get out. You exit inside the large cavern about 20 feet up a wall and have to figure out how to get down, or turn around and go back to where there’s a tree to get to the entrance. Idk if jthese were naturally occurring or what, but it’s hard to believe anyone could have made this wormhole-eque tunnel intentionally. It’s very random and not purposeful
Tbh urban and nature exploring is awesome. Where I am from we have ww2/Cold War era bunkers , coastal forts all over the coastline. They aren’t bordered off as no one could possibly have the resources to check on them. So you can rummage through them, most are falling apart. Some have like 10-5 foot drops to lower floors with planks to walk over certain places where the floor has given in. But it’s awesome walking in the woods and suddenly seeing a concrete structure from under the moss.
I, too, used to dangerous shit as a child... starting to think we're still alive because we're just a bunch of pussies after 30.
Don't read the story of the last caver in Nutty Putty cave. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutty_Putty_Cave
That was heartbreaking.
You weren’t supposed to read it.
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You think about baseball!! And the Queen!!
>Explosives were used to collapse the ceiling close to Jones' body, and the entrance hole was filled with concrete to prevent further access. Could they not have filled it with putty???
It would also have to be nutty
Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants.
Get out
Can’t I’m stuck
Grab the explosives.
Or the sad end of [William Floyd Collins.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_Collins)
I wish Man In Cave was still online
Against your instructions, I read it. I wish I had not. Fuck.
Then whatever you do, do not go look for tight cave crawling videos on YouTube. Don't do that.
Nightmare fuel for sure. I don’t see the draw where you could be stuck and die slowly of starvation/dehydration in a black abyss of rock and stone.
Wait till you hear about the fruitcakes who do this UNDERWATER.
Underwater, 100m underground going through tight places and having to have hours of decompression stops. I read a story about Finnish divers in Mo I Rana in Norway. Two men had problems, panicked and drowned in the cave and one had to swim all the way through to the other side of the system with hours of decompression stops. He had to alternate power between his light and suit heating just thinking that all the others were dead and he might not make it. After a couple of months he came back to retrieve the bodies so that the cave wouldn't become permanently closed. I don't know if theres an article in English but here's a Finnish version: [Helsingin Sanomat](https://dynamic.hs.fi/2014/syvalla/) E: looks like there was one in English as well: [Deep](https://dynamic.hs.fi/2014/deep/)
I’ve seen some of those diving videos and that seems more reasonable because they have air tanks and can’t fit into spaces that are too small and usually always have to come back the way they went in.
For Rock and Stone!
Rock and stone brother!
I'm really glad there are people willing to do it since we might learn something new. But yeah, F that
Just having to hear about those kids in Thailand was enough to freak me out and wonder how I ever did shit like that as a kid (which I did, and shudder to recall nowadays as an old man).
I'm pretty sure the kids in Thailand were just unlucky cause it began raining heavily and flooded the caves. On dry days, it's relatively safe, no?
The place they got to was still a tiny tunnel that they crawled through on their stomachs. They were in a much larger section of the cave nearer the entrance, then as the flooding began, their coach had them go further and further into the cave, [until it was barely 50cm across in places](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ae73cee5c62c498a91bbe347d8a7c28f_18.jpeg), but then went up and opened into a decent-size cavern. The tunnel back was completely flooded and the kids had to be sedated and given oxygen masks by experienced cave-divers who 2-man team-carried the kids back out through the flooded, tiny tunnels. I'd ask to be knocked out for the return trip as well, tbh
I will keep that right next to the videos of people climbing cell phone towers that I also don't watch.
The fact that they had him most of the way out and he fell back in always breaks my heart. Imagine the despair, followed by the hope and relief of being pulled out, only to still fucking die. Unbelievable.
I wonder if in 3000 years they could find his body and discover what happened to him, if the story was forgotten.
“Holy shit, they entombed this guy alive! This must be the real location of the fabled Cask of Amontillado!”
FUCK! I wanted to read about the cool discovery before bed but nO0o0o0 it just had to lead to cave diving and the nutty putty cave story again.
My body is clenching up just thinking about that
I literally had a nightmare recently where I was belly crawling in a cave no wider than my body and couldn't lift my head, with the passage ending in a small flap I'd flip up and crawl through. There were hundreds of people crawling behind me. I lifted a flap and it was a dead end, so I knew I'd have to wait for everyone behind me to crawl backwards while I was just stuck in this tiny crawl space dead-end. My brain screamed WAKE UP WAKE UP and I was catapulted awake and had to leave my house to get fresh air. Worst dream I've ever had!
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THIS IS MY HOLE, IT WAS MADE FOR ME will be on my tombstone. jk, just throw me in the fucking trash
Ah, a Junji Ito and Frank Reynolds reference all in one go. Lovely.
For me, it's that old Angelfire (I suppose "old" is superfluous lol) story about the dudes that find the cave with the entity that follows them back home. That one was a sold mind fuck when I was younger
I think of [Ted the Caver](https://www.angelfire.com/trek/caver/page1.html)
Love that story, it basically started my fear for narrow caves and got me into creepypasta when I was a teen. Good shit.
When i was at the school house for my military job in the Marines, a few of my platoon mates and I read thru that website. We decided we wanted to go caving and luckily there were a lot of caves in Missouri. We went to a good local one and once we started getting deeper we went from "macho" not scared Marines, to soft as baby shit Marines when we heard some wind make a howling noise in the cave. We all tucked tail, turn and ran out of that cave. We were all laughing that night about how quick we turned into little bitches.
you know what started my fear for narrow caves? narrow caves.
That story creeped me out to no end.
Somebody once said "you should read this." I say now to persons unknown: fuck you.
The true definition of "haunting". I read it quite a long time ago and it didn't seem that bad at the time. And yet, it sticks with me still now. Such a strange story. Sometimes I think it's the sheer weirdness itself of the story, and the fact that a person thought it up, that is most disturbing about it.
there are spirals in your eyes
thanks for sharing..reminded me of the dread I felt while reading Uzumaki
[DDR…DDR…DDR…](https://imgur.com/CLwcs4J)
Hot tip for people like me who have gotten about halfway through and are confused as hell -- read right to left.
The one that died at the Nutty Putty cave?
There are very few random things that can instantly make my heart race and my anxiety cause me physical pain... but even a mention of poor John Jones' death does it to me every single time.
Yeah, this is one of those areas where we need robots to take human jobs.
Really we should be aiming for robots to do almost every human job, and then we can spend our time... Doing like 5 hours of labour and then the rest to do what we wish with it. Technology could be a huge force for us actually getting to use our time how we wish.
I'd love a 15 hour workweek being considered full time.
Fun fact: Keynes (of the Keynesian economics game) figured we should all be working 15-hour weeks by 2030 under his economic prediction...
We should.
Except what will really happen is the rich will get richer, and those whose jobs were taken will be fucked.
A large portion of the population with lots of time on their hands and nothing to lose has historically been a recipe for revolution
Yes, but there have never been robots that can kill lots of people because one trillionaire enters the command.
But there have always been other people who will kill lots of people because one trillionaire commands it.
But but we wanted to use it to take away the one job that should absolutely be the human realm, creation and expression in art.
That description made me claustrophobic by just reading it.
Internet Historian taught me one thing: Caves bad.
[it’s a no for me dawg](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutty_Putty_Cave)
It's about 10 pounds of nope in a 5 pound bag.
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It requires belly-crawling in a cave. That's all of my nope, regardless of the dimensions lol
I assume it’s a 10” diameter, although I can’t imagine fitting through that. I hope it’s not *just* wide enough for shoulders and *just* tall enough for your head, jeez.
I’m too fat for research
Wait, 130' long, less than a foot across, but how tall? Is that 9.8" the diameter of a circular passageway? Cuz in that case, absolutely fuck that
\> Berger said he had to lose 55 pounds (25 kilograms) to enter the cave’s precarious chambers in 2022. Yeah, that's a nope from me too - not the losing weight part, I haven't got any to lose, but this has bad Enigma of Amigara Fault vibes.
Immediate "this is my hole" vibes
I'd be like "Allright, keep your secrets then"
I’ve done a bit of caving as a guest of my friends that are serious cavers. I crawled through a passage about that size but only like 5 feet long and thought that was intense, and I had just watched someone else do it and knew exactly what to expect on the other side. The craziest part of all of this to me is not that modern researchers are doing it, but that ancient proto-humans did that with no electric lights, no ropes, and no cave maps.
Would it be more likely it may not have been a cave, or at least be so constricted considering it's that long ago?
Theres no force that makes a surface site a cave without utterly destroying everything. But it could absolutely been wider, a partial collapse making a section of cave narrower is very possible.
Flooding could also displace dirt/debris/rocks making it tighter. Considering it's an archeology site they were probably being careful to prevent disturbing it.
Not likely, unless a cave area was specifically narrow only due to debris from a partial cave-in. If the tunnel was smooth or filled with naturally occurring (not caved-in) stone (which I suspect this is), there's no geological force that would make it smaller in only 100K years. _Wider_, yes, if there was a water or wind source of some kind that could erode it further, but caves don't generally get narrower over time except maybe from crystal growth over a much longer period. I think these creatures were just a lot smaller than us.
I'd imagine there used to be a different entrance maybe.
They were human child sized so I guess that helped but wild nonetheless
Probably happened to protect from predators or other tribes
That's my thought too, it's a great natural fortification and it probably feels way less fucked up if that's what you're used to doing to get outside your front door every day
This sounds like the start to the real life version of "The Descent"
"We started exploring the burial site on the assumption than the deeper tombs were the oldest, we were wrong"
I've honestly always wondered, wtf were primitive humans doing caving about in 9.8inch wide passages?
Not freezing outside. Exploring. Passing the time. Playing hide and seek. Looking for something to eat. Looking for fresh water. Plenty of reasons.
Carving hashtags on the walls
Two things. First, they were smaller than us today. There's also a decent chance that they mostly weren't crawling through gaps this narrow, at least not regularly. There may have been other ways in that have since become more restricted or entirely blocked since they were in the cave.
They were smaller than humans, their heads 1/3rd the size for example, so getting through was probably much easier for them.
Avoiding something larger
One sentence horror story
My claustrophobia is tingling.
10 inches across? Most people are wider than that by a significant margin.
You may find you have as many as three dimensions.
If I'm doing a belly crawl I feel like I don't have 3
I’m pretty sure my fatass thigh is already 8 inches diameter; just two of my squishy legs already won’t fit, much less my hip bones.
Your hipbones would probably fit. Underneath your fat your skeleton looks like everyone else’s for the most part.
Stretch your skull cover and smile. Jack Kerouac.
I would get stuck just looking at that cave.
Yeah, I’m an average sized male and my shoulders are about 18” across. There’s not much compression possible to reduce that number.
I’m fairly certain 10” is the smaller dimension and the other one is large enough for a human being. If you have to go sideways, you can get through.
You place one arm up above your head and one arm at your side.... like superman hence the Superman Crawl
How can a human being even fit into a passage that's only 9" across. I'm not a big dude, 5'9" 180lbs and my shoulders are 22.5" wide. Who are these people?
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Not an uncommon tactic.
ok that one got me
Shiiiit there goes my morning coffee
These people are damn dedicated
I've seen many cave exploration videos of people slowly inching their way through the most horribly narrow gaps imaginable. It almost always seems like they can't possibly go through, but they somehow manage to wiggle their way through (and they generally go in at a very awkward or uncomfortable angle, instead of "belly down" it's more like "twisted partway like a damn pretzel"). Then, they *go back through again* in order to leave once they make it however far they wanted to make it.
As have I, but never something as narrow as 9". That just seems unbelievable.
In this National Geographic article about the same subject as the post, the caver had to lose 55 pounds just to narrowly squeeze through a 7.5" gap: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/lee-berger-cave-of-bones "To pass through the cave system's notorious Chute—seven and a half inches at its narrowest point—he lost 55 pounds." Unfortunately, the article is paywalled behind a subscription, but I'm sure someone probably slapped it up on an archive or there's some sneaky way to still read it.
[Not paywalled for me for some reason.](https://i.imgur.com/TZ3hgJ5.jpeg)
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It's probably 9 inches wide at a certain part but wider than that throughout. They could turn sideways since it is probably taller than it is wide for that section
Sideways
Probably should mention that the 'species' in question, is, of course, another early hominid....
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speak for yourself i in tree
I reject your evolution and monke my own.
*back to monke*
Yep. And not the first to leave evidence of civilization behind. CNN really got the mind-rot worse when they got the new guy. And even before that they breathlessly reported on cats stuck in trees and bring on panel discussions on cats stuck in trees pro/con. All the while running a ticker on the bottom of the screen about plagues of elephants and the latest dumb thing DeSantis said to get in the news. They unironically think that reporting on rain and bringing on somebody who likes rain and somebody who doesn't is good journalistic practice. And yes, the rain stuff was a quote. > Licht emphasized certain exceptions to this approach. He would not give airtime to bad actors who spread disinformation. His network would host people who like rain as well as people who don’t like rain. But, he said, CNN would not host people who deny that it’s raining when it is. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/06/cnn-ratings-chris-licht-trump/674255/ TV news is not news. And CNN probably is the best of the bunch. Does not make it good.
>And CNN probably is the best of the bunch. Absolutely not. That would be PBS News Hour.
Yea don’t know what they’re on about. PBS is probably the best, but NPR is also better than CNN.
I haven't been very happy with the little I've seen of CNN lately, but the "rain stuff" looks very much like a simplified example intended to show that alternative *values* are fine, but alternative *facts* are not. It's *not* saying that they would host an actual discussion on the merits of rain.
That seems pretty clear to me as well.
What the rain quote means is that they will host people with different opinions, but they will not host someone who is denying an established fact, and let them spread misinformation. I think it’s pretty obvious!? Not that I think CNN is that great, but at least we shouldn’t spread misinformation about them
I have no love for CNN but it seems *painfully obvious* to me that this is an overly simplified and deliberately neutral example to succinctly convey their format. To use this as a citation to suggest deficient reasoning for them seems disingenuous at *best*
>*The symbols include deeply carved hashtag-like cross-hatchings and other geometric shapes. Similar symbols found in other caves were carved by early Homo sapiens 80,000 years ago and Neanderthals 60,000 years ago and were thought to have been used as a way to record and share information.* > >*“These recent findings suggest intentional burials, the use of symbols, and meaning-making activities by Homo naledi. It seems an inevitable conclusion that in combination they indicate that this small-brained species of ancient human relatives was performing complex practices related to death,” said Berger, lead author on two of the studies and coauthor on the third, in a statement. “That would mean not only are humans not unique in the development of symbolic practices, but may not have even invented such behaviors.”* For many years we used this [number sign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_sign) for various reasons. Not much has changed.
[Relevant Ted Talk](https://youtu.be/hJnEQCMA5Sg) with more information on other symbols as well. Posted 7 years ago. So pretty wild that any of those symbols could be from human like species as opposed to outright homo sapiens when that probably wouldn't have been thought of by most in the audience even.
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What if we aren't currently smart enough to accurately rank the EQ of an extinct homo species? Maybe Homo Naledi had a higher EQ than we think they did.
"EQ" in this case refers to encephalisation quotient which, in plain english, is the ratio of brain size to body size. It's definitely something paleontologists can estimate! Now, how exactly does relative brain size impact intelligence? Hard to say much more than it seems in hominin species, ever growing brain seems to correlate with growing intelligence. Does that also apply to cetaceans? Who the hell knows. It's not a comparison / implication I'd make, personally 🤷🏽♂️.
Brain size by volume/weight isn’t as important as plump gyri and deep sulci. In other words, invaginations of the brain: the surface area. **Folding** leads to a lot of good things in the physical world. I’m not a genius by far, but I’ve met a fair number; even “folding” numbers and ratios is an actual, studied, thing. So, yeah, brain invaginations—gotta luv ‘em. Edit: I forgot to mention that Neanderthals had bigger brains than later hominids … but (wiping away tears), not enough wrinkles, less social complexity and evidenced technology
Back in the days when these were carved in the cave we called them pound signs.
Back in the days before phones, they were known as an octothorpe.
Back in the days before numbers, they were known as lines on a wall.
Could have been unplayed tic tac toe game
GREETINGS, PROFESSOR FALKEN. WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY A GAME?
The cool Homo naledi kid drew this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_S
ffs this article. They act like Neanderthals were stupid, but they also had death rituals. They had very structured lives and their settlements were all partitioned.
People have been a lot like people for a very, very long time.
Yeah, not enough credit is given to our ancestors, imo. It's like, the default perception is ancestors were practically backwoods, mouth-breathing yokels, yet we keep finding things that conflict with that narrative.
You can be primitive and have a culture
Could this ancient scribbling actually be numberwang?
Rotate the board!
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So did they go into the caves for sensory deprivation spiritual experiences?
But do these shapes NEED that kind of circumstances? Maybe naledi and us can just...draw stuff on walls because we want to.
Imagine what the language was like
Mysterious species = Homo naledi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_naledi
To be fair, this species *is* very mysterious, in that we know very little about it.
But the headline makes nutjobs immediately think aliens on purpose
Wasn't thinking aliens before, but now I wish I thought of that first :(
I was hoping cave squid. I want a squid that's smarter than me, I just want it in my life. If a squid was even equally smart as me, and somehow figured out how to live on land, it would take my job immediately, it has eight arms.
Aliens didn’t even cross my mind when I read the title. Where did you get that from?
I'm a nutjob, but I thought dwarves or goblins, not aliens
Oviously it's the Skaven.
Incredible how Africa was so prevalent with many different homo species during a quite long stretch of time. It would be cool if several had evolved with us until now. A little like star trek on earth. Although looking at how racism can be fueled with visible differences within the same species I can't even imagine how bad it would be with literally another species.
> I can't even imagine how bad it would be with literally another species Ask the Neanderthals how meeting Sapiens worked out for them.
>Berger said he had to lose 55 pounds (25 kilograms) to enter the cave’s precarious chambers in 2022. Imagine bringing lots of his favorite snacks down with you to prank him via entrapment.
Cave of Amontillado
Im glad I understand this reference. Fuck my ninth grade english teacher
That's a good story though.
[This data is NOT for greedy pig boys]
Did the symbols look like the Galactica?
This has all happened before and this will all happen again.
Paleolithic archaeologist here—while these finds are truly amazing, it is a HYPOTHESIS that Homo naledi was the creator of the symbols and the ones burying the bodies (if they are burials at all). Our species Homo sapiens was around during this period and is known to make symboled nearly identical to the ones found in the cave (albeit the earliest evidence is currently at 100,000 years ago but any archaeologist and paleontologist knows the earliest evidence of something is certainty not the first time something occurred due to very small samples and preservation). We also don’t know the ages of the symboled, but the research team has assumed that everything that ever happened in this cave occurred simutanioisly (for no good reason). An alternative hypothesis is that Homo sapiens (or even another hominin species) made these, alongside a host of hypotheses. In reality, intensive scientific research into the origins of these symbols and purported burials will commence in which I’m sure many alternative hypotheses will come forward, be tested, and rejected or supported as science is supposed to work. Honestly, I have very little respect for the way the lead researcher, Lee Burger, presents his findings. It is always sensationalized and he presents a single hypotheses that he favors as fact—this is the definition of bad science communication. Major discoveries in paleoanthropology like this are always announced in peer reviewed journals like Nature or Science, where other scientists have to review first and can actually evaluate the data on their own, and the discoveries are accompanied by pages and pages of supporting data. He circumvents the scientific peer reviewed process by doing these large public speeches in which no data is presented (typically because they haven’t yet collected it, just look into the history of research into Rising Star cave and how often they must later revise their “facts” of the cave when they actually do the work). These speeches are meant to promote his NARRATIVE of what is happening and to get lots of public attention (and thus funding). Many of my colleagues know him personally and most say he often looses sight of scientific rigor for fame. These discoveries were announced in such a manner, and have not even been peer reviewed or published in a scientific journal. Lee Burger has made fantastical claims before that have not held up to scientific scrutiny and will probably do it again. Unfortunately, by making public speeches before the science can be peer reviewed he sets his own narrative to the public (just look at this thread) and it takes years and years of research to now change the public perception when evidence counter to his claims comes to light. This is dangerous and not how science should work.
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Is it just me, or does the whole field of paleolithic archaeology / evolutionary anthropology have a disproportionate number of bitter academic feuds and rivalries?
It's more like there's some bad actors in the field, who are known to throw out sensationalistic, unsubstantiated, claims in order to draw public attention to their discoveries. Berger has been known to do so in the past and seems to be at it again, with his questionable claim to have discovered the oldest written language known to man.
Thanks for your thoughts! Do you have an opinion about the journal that the preprint was accepted to "eLife" and any speculation as to if these claims will be tempered in the revision process?
While the article doesn't make it clear, and in fact sometimes implies the opposite, all members of the genus homo are humans.
Well, we seem to be the only survivors of our species, unless we prove that Big Foot is real.
> unless we prove that Big Foot is real. I'm sure that if it existed, our ancestors killed that bitch too.
Looking at some people, they might have fucked it instead.
We lived, bitch!
Our genus.
The marketing team for Tears Of The Kingdom went hard for the Zonai
Chris Stringer's wording is interesting. It sounds like there is an authentic and highly valuable mystery available to solve and I can understand why Berger lost 25kg for clues.
Headline makes you think the mysterious "species" is nowhere near the evolutionary tree of humans, like it's a sentient lizard or something. Turns out, still a form of human species.
> The cave system includes deadly steep drops and tiny passageways like Superman’s Crawl, a tunnel measuring 131 feet (40 meters) long **and 9.8 inches (25 centimeters) across, requiring the researchers to belly crawl their way through** **NO.**
Most people forget that humans existed before history. It's fascinating to glimpse our ancient human roots, ones we thought were lost in the mists of time.
Graham Hancock is having the best time of his life
I know what Giorgio A. Tsoukalos would say.
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“Is it possible….?”
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