The news, if proven to be true, could shake the prevailing notions of human evolution: the famous paleontologist Lee Berger announced on Monday that he had discovered prehistoric burials in South Africa, older by at least 100,000 years than those known to date by scientists. .

In a fetal position, curled up in alcoves dug at the end of a network of narrow galleries, some thirty meters below the surface of the earth, the distant cousins ​​of modern man were found petrified in their graves in excavations that began in 2018.

The researchers found that the graves were filled with the soil that had originally been dug to open the holes, proof, they say, that the bodies of these hominids were deliberately buried.

These are the oldest burials ever found, older by at least 100,000 years than the burials of the “Wise” man, Homo sapiens, they argue in their paper, which has not yet been peer-reviewed before being published in the scientific journal eLife.

The excavations took place at the ‘Cradle of Humanity’, a UNESCO World Heritage Site located northwest of Johannesburg.

The oldest tombs that have been found so far, mainly in the Middle East and Kenya, are about 100,000 years old, and Homo sapiens were buried in them. South African tombs are 200,000-300,000 years old. They contain the bones of Homo naledi, an extinct species that was about 1.50 meters tall and had a brain the size of an orange. This species was discovered in 2013 by the American, naturalized South African, paleoanthropologist Lee Berger and called into question the linear evolution of man. For scientists, it still remains a mystery. Homo naledi (meaning “star”, in a local South African language), had features of other primitive species, such as its dentition, but legs similar to ours and hands capable of handling tools.

“These discoveries show that burial practices were not the exclusive prerogative of Homo sapiens or other hominids with larger brains,” the scientists say.

This theory, which contradicts the commonly accepted notion that the consciousness of death and the practices that accompany it make someone “human”, was put forward by Berger before, when he introduced Homo naledi to the world in 2015. Then , had caused an uproar and many experts questioned the validity of the findings of the featured American scientist, who is supported by National Geographic.

“It was going too far for scientists at the time,” Berger told AFP. “They were convinced that it was all related to the big brain and that it happened very recently, less than 100,000 years ago,” he explained. “We are at the point of telling the world that this is not true,” he added, going even further. He claims that geometric symbols, squares, triangles or crosses, carefully carved with some sharp tool were found in the tomb partitions. “This means that humans are not the only ones who developed symbolic practices, but they may not even have been the ones who invented this behavior,” he said.

Carol Ward, an anthropologist at the University of Missouri, commented that “these results, if confirmed, would be of great importance.”

“I look forward to learning how the location of the remains rules out other possible explanations, other than deliberate burial, and to see the results after they have been studied by our peers,” he said.