WEBVTT - Cave of Bones, with Lee Berger 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:15.040 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:18.239 name is Robert Lamb. On today's episode of Stuff to 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:20.160 Blow Your Mind, I'm going to be speaking with noted 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:24.680 paleoanthropologist Lee Berger, author of the new book Cave of Bones, 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:28.880 a true story of discovery, adventure, and human origins, and 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:33.639 he's also featured in the Netflix documentary Unknown Cave of Bones. 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:37.640 Let's get right to the interview. Hi, Lee, Thanks for 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:38.320 coming on the show. 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:39.840 It's great to be here. 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:44.519 To start off, just really generally, how should listeners understand 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:48.160 the mission and the challenges of paleoanthropology. 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:54.680 So paleoanthropology is, in its loosest definition, the search for 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:58.960 understanding human origins, but it's a little broader than that. 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:02.520 It's also hominine origins. And the reason I make that 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:07.080 distinction is that we humans tend to self center everything 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:12.760 around ourselves, and hominins are bipedal apes that are part 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:18.600 of our journey, but they're not all our direct ancestors. 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:21.520 If you will. There's been a mass and almost braided 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:26.399 stream of ancient relatives that walked on two legs that 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:30.480 are closer related to us than chimpanzees and gorillas are 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:34.880 so there if you imagine evolution of sort of coming 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:39.880 from a last common ancestor, gorilla's broke off first, then chimpanzees, 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:44.160 bona bo's breakoff, and all the rest of that story 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:48.680 between us and that moment are the hominins as we evolved, 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:52.960 bipedalism and special adaptations. We also, though, study not only 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:57.280 the physical morphology the kind of the way that evolution happens. 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:00.640 We study the culture of these ancients spies, and that's 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:02.680 going to be I think particularly important to these most 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:03.640 recent discoveries. 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:08.480 Now, you were previously the Philip Tobias Chair in Paleoanthropology 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:12.560 at the University of Atvadeschrand. I know you've taken on 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:15.520 some new titles recently. What is your role now with 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:18.800 National Geographic and how does all of this factor into 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:20.919 your other positions and your work? 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.280 Right, So, I am an explorer in residence is my 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:28.640 primary job at National Geographic Society. I'm also a Senior 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:32.040 Carnegie Science Fellow. That's a very recent appointment, as I've 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:37.120 joined that organization largely to push the sort of hard 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:40.519 sciences in our field and the relationship between that remarkable 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:46.560 group of scientists and organization. I still maintain a position 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:49.360 at VITZ an honorary professor, and I'm director of the 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:52.560 Center for the Exploration of the Deep Human Journey, so 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:56.400 all of those intersect with each other. I run a 0:02:56.520 --> 0:03:02.000 very large science program that has a sort of collaborative 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:05.720 collegial group of scientists from around the world of over 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:08.680 one hundred and sixty at this time. It's growing almost 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:12.040 on a daily basis. That so it's a very large 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:15.399 science program. Some of those are based in the sort 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:20.720 of traditional university setting, others of them are based in 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:23.920 sort of institutional things like Carnegie or museums. 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:26.640 Now the book is Cave of Bones, a true story 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:29.919 of discovery, adventure and human origins. And then of course 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:33.600 we also have the Netflix documentary Unknown Cave of Bones. 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:37.680 They take readers and viewers to a particular cave system 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:40.880 in South Africa. Can you tell us about the Rising 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:42.200 Star Cave Complex? 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:46.240 So the Rising Star Cave complex came deeply into my 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:50.160 life in twenty thirteen. I'd known about it before then. 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:54.320 It was a very well known system of caves where 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:56.880 amateur cavers and I'd even caved in in the nineteen 0:03:57.000 --> 0:04:00.440 nineties just outside of Johannesburg, South Africa, if you will, 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:06.400 a huge network of subterranean system almost four kilometers long. 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:08.400 So what is that two and a half miles or 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:13.880 so of underground passages networks, small and somewhat larger cave 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:18.120 systems that goes down maybe a two hundred feet or 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:22.640 so before you hit ground water. But it's like a 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:25.360 it's hard to describe for people who tend to think 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:29.080 of like the big mammoth cave systems. It's a latticework cave. 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:33.120 So it's like skyscrapers that are buried in the ground 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:35.599 with different floors, and you can move and traverse up 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:39.479 and down these and it can be impossibly difficult. And 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:43.800 so both the book and the Netflix documentary followed us 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:46.960 over a period of almost a year as we were 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:52.400 testing the idea of whether we had discovered burials in 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:56.160 a non human species, and that is a species called Homoletti, 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:00.359 which is a very small brained hominin. It's a a 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:03.680 brain slightly larger than a chimpanzee, but it was a 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:07.440 biped It walked on two legs and existed sort of 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:10.120 out of time and place. If we looked at a 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.159 hominin like that, we would normally think, oh, it's two million, 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:15.760 two and a half million years old based on its 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:19.200 entire anatomy. It turned out that homon Aletti is much 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:22.200 younger than that, something like two hundred and forty thousand 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:24.919 to three hundred and thirty thousand years before present. So 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:31.800 in finding these possible burials, and we go through that 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:35.200 sort of period of analysis and looking at in this 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:39.640 deep dark chamber almost three hundred and fifty feet back 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:42.960 into a system, we knew it was going to be 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:47.080 one of the most controversial things ever said, because until 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:52.760 that moment of seeing those the idea was that really 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:57.480 only humans and things very much like humans, like neanderthals 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:00.440 Bury their dead. It was our gg, one of the 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:04.760 last things we had that separated ourselves from the animal 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:09.920 kingdom and animal behavior. And so both the Netflix show 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:13.279 and the book carry us through that period and then 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:15.960 to what I kind of referred to as seventy two 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:20.039 hours of remarkable discovery, where I ended up losing about 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:24.680 fifty five pounds and got down into this incredibly difficult 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:27.240 to get to space where only forty six people had 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:30.320 been before almost died in the process of doing that, 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:33.640 I needed answers to some questions before we published that 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:36.719 burial paper that really I kind of only had the 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:40.400 broad experience to answer. And it was at that point 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:43.880 that I discovered etchings on the wall, engravings on the wall, 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:48.440 and evidence of fire on the roof. And then that 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:51.039 kind of broke everything free, because we suddenly realized there 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:54.680 was evidence of fire everywhere. And so now we're at 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:58.880 this kind of moment where my colleagues and I have 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:02.520 announced to the world that we believe we have discovered 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:06.000 the first non human species culture in history. 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:09.360 Yes, having watched the documentary and read the book, this 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:12.400 is all this is just really mind blowing. I'm not 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:14.920 even sure of which direction to start with first, like 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:19.200 just the sheer challenges of the cave system, or just 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:23.440 how potentially profound that the discoveries are. I guess I 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:27.080 guess maybe starting with the setting a little bit before 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:31.400 you even ventured down there to the main chamber, how 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:35.680 did you go about carrying out these explorations, like with 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:38.440 the command center and finding the right people to send 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:38.880 down there. 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:44.240 So when I was first shown where this material was, 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:47.400 I sent my then fifteen year old, very skinny son 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:49.920 down there to verify that it was real, and I 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:52.440 was shown by these two amateur cavers that I had 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:54.800 enlisted where this was. I knew I would never get 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:58.000 into that space. You know, if you imagine this vertical 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:02.520 squeeze that that moves in various directions, that squeezes down 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:06.560 to seven and a half inches in places my physic 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:08.760 I used to choke, my ego would never fit much 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:14.360 less my physique. I designed a system to work in 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:18.400 the space based on I've been very close friends with 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:22.080 both James Cameron and Bob Ballard and have been admirers 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:25.640 of the way they've handled their expeditions, which include, you know, 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:29.520 sort of deep sea work where you can't often go 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:32.640 to these places. Now James did, of course, and so 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:35.199 is Bob, but you can't often go to these places. 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:38.520 So they use remote operation. They use you know, tethered 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:44.960 operations and using remote operated vehicles, and so I designed 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:47.920 a system where I could be in that kind of 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:51.000 command center. It's also based loosely on NASA as well. 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:56.840 And then I found my own remote operated people, which 0:08:57.320 --> 0:09:01.199 I put a Facebook add out, and you know, looking 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:05.800 for skinny scientists that had skills to climb and cave 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:10.880 and work in extreme environments. And I selected six just 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:15.040 remarkable scientists. It just happened to be women. That journey 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:17.960 has continued and we've constantly advanced the technology. We have 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:21.199 Wi Fi in the cave. Now it's a lot more sophisticated, 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:24.440 but we still have all that hardwiring. It goes in 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:28.200 there and I sit at the top with other scientists 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:31.839 and we monitor and watch over their shoulders and and 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:34.760 help them excavate the few people that could get into 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:37.280 that space. It's it was. It was a lot of fun, 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:41.680 very dramatic, I'll admit at times frustrating that you know, 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:45.960 I couldn't be there, and they would bring each piece 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:50.080 out after, you know, carefully excavating it, documenting it, and 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:53.679 then it would become part of a broader study it. 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:57.040 It's an extreme environment. It's an environment that can kill you, 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:02.120 and it's uh and I think it's probably pretty unique 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:05.760 amongst the world's you know, search for human origins, a 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:10.679 pretty unique environment to actually be physically working and constantly 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:14.600 constantly adapting changing, I mean the way you do it. 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:17.800 I think you can actually see that probably better in 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:21.400 the book than the documentary, where you actually feel as 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:26.400 we keep adapting things along the way, trying to improvise 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:29.200 and make it better as we hit roadblocks. 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:34.880 Yeah, I found both the documentary and the book we're 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:38.120 highly illustrated in different ways. I mean, obviously we're getting 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:41.160 some of the actual footage in the documentary, but you 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:44.480 have some some wonderful illustrations in the book that you know, 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:47.800 just lay out exactly how the cave system is oriented, 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:52.640 and then your descriptions of when you actually go down 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:54.920 and then have to ascend back up. That was some 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:56.800 of that was just very harowing to read. 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:03.000 It gives me PTSD even reading that, and I wrote it. 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:05.880 It was also tough to watch that on the Netflix 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:11.720 stock movie. You you can imagine because the for your listeners, 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:16.000 what ultimately happened was, after deciding that we couldn't go 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:18.960 forward with the Barrel publication until we sort of sorted 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:22.920 out a few critical questions, I decided to make the 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:25.520 attempt in you know, turning fifty seven. It wasn't gonna 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:27.120 be many times I was going to be able to 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:31.120 attempt an extreme journey like this, and so I lost 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:35.400 the weight got in there. I knew it was going 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:38.360 to be terrible because I've told the world how terrible 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.120 it is. I had no idea how awful it was. 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:43.839 And it was a very strange experience. You know. I've 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:46.240 been an explorer all my life, and I've been in 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:49.360 life and death situation several times. But this was different 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:53.200 because I was having to make conscious choices to push 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:57.160 beyond places that I really did know deep in my 0:11:57.280 --> 0:11:59.840 mind I might not be able to get back out of. 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:03.480 And those are those are hard. You learn a lot 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:06.120 about yourself and in those sort of moments when you 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:09.440 make a choice like that and and pass through it. 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:15.280 Going down was awful. Coming up was the most terrible 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:18.800 and wonderful thing in my whole life, you know. And 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:21.400 I had to I had to make a decision, you know. 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:25.080 I tried to remove a body part, you know, because 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:28.079 I was stuck and and I'd never been in that 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:30.439 situation before, you know, I'd never been in the kind 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:34.640 of situation where you have to make a deeply a 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:38.040 decision to try and hurt yourself to get out of something, 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:41.720 and you learn you learn a lot about yourself in 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:45.320 that situation too. But I obviously I'm here now. I 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:49.280 obviously did get out, but it's about as close to 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:52.800 not surviving at e vent as I've ever been. 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:55.800 Like even the names of sort of the three phases 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:59.480 to get down to that main chamber, it implies this 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:01.839 kind of my journey. You have, like the Superman crawl, 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:05.480 which already sounds harrowing. You go up the dragon's back, 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:07.960 which sounds very mythic, but then the shoot, right, the 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:10.440 shoot is the real choke point here. 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:13.120 That's right. So you know, Superman's crawl, by the way, 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:18.280 is just named because you had to extend one arm 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:22.320 in the kind of flying Superman pose to fit through it. 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:24.240 Most people did. And there was this awful rock in 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:26.200 the middle of it that you had to crawl over. 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:29.840 And then you enter this giant, beautiful chamber dragons back 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:33.600 and up this jagged series of rocks. It's almost forty 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:36.880 feet tall, which if you fall off, you die, you 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:38.520 know kind of thing. And then you get to the 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:43.760 top and you stare down into this crevasse, into this 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:49.080 labyrinth of narrow squeezes and things, and you know, slide 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:52.120 in there and down you go in a place that 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:56.120 there's no point in it, that rocks aren't pressing on 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:58.760 both sides of your chest, almost no point in it 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:03.199 that you can move maneuver your head anywhere but down 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:06.520 and usually at an angle because it's just narrow enough 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:09.120 to just wide enough to you know, a helmet to fit. 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:13.600 It's tough, it's it's it's a hard space, but it is, 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:16.560 you know. While I was in there too, though, you 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:19.040 can actually see that home in the LETTI who was 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:22.200 thinner than we were, who had a smaller head than 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:26.520 we were, who had more powerful hands, grasping hands and 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:29.960 powerful shoulders, would have moved through their very different We're 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:32.240 just a bunch of big, clumsy apes in a space 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:35.920 we're not supposed to be, and they would have, I think, 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:38.520 moved through there very very differently. 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:41.360 We think they are. They would have been arboreal, or 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:43.560 more arboreal than the nuts, right, so. 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:48.640 Careful about ar boreal. Better climbers. Our boreal means trees. 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:52.320 I think they could have done very well in trees, obviously, 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:54.600 and almost certainly climb them. But I think they were 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:57.920 very good rock climbers. Took and they have these curved 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:01.160 fingers and these powerful joint and they're very light and 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:03.640 build so I think they would have been very very 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:04.800 good rock climbers. 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:07.000 Yeah. I love one of the parts in the book 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:09.600 where you're talking about having to navigate the Shoot and 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:14.600 you're imagining them moving rather effortlessly through that same space. 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:17.360 Yeah, you know I was. When I was I had 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:21.040 a lot of time in that space, a lot more 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:23.280 time than I'd like to think about. And you know, 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:25.960 part of what I was doing there was also looking 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:28.040 around and seeing the space in a very different way 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:32.960 when the first explorers had gone in there. The space 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:35.440 is so narrow that you really can't get cameras in 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:38.120 there to give any reflection about what is. We can't 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:40.800 get basic measuring tools, or we couldn't. We now have 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.960 done that, and so it took on this sort of 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:47.080 mythical thing of the Shoot that you talk about, and 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:49.920 actually was even drawn by some of our in our 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:53.200 early signific papers as a tube, you know, this vertical 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:55.080 tube from one place to the other, and it's not 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:58.600 at all. It turns out it's elabyrinth. And I'm not 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:01.600 sure how that sort of mythology got stuck even into 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:05.840 the science. We're now rewriting that. But that's why I 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:10.200 call it the Shoot labyrinth. Now it's not a uniform pipe. 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:13.600 Why is all this so important? Because this is one 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:17.960 of the hardest things that people have to understand why 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:21.200 this place especial and why wouldn't Aletti go to all 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:24.120 that effort just to put it's dead in there. I 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:28.040 ha's so many people who who It's very interesting. As 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:29.880 people talk to me about this, they go, but why 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:32.000 would they do that? And you know, I had a 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:35.160 very interesting experience. I was in London recently and I 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:37.520 was talking to someone about this and we were seeing 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:39.800 up on one of those high buildings in central London 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:43.680 and the cathedrals right right behind it, and their back 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:46.040 was to the cathedral, and I was looking at them, 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:48.760 and they said, you know, why would anyway? I just 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:51.280 can't understand why they would go to such effort for 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:53.960 their dead. And I went, you know, I just gestured 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:56.880 with my hand out the window to this gigantic cathedral. 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:59.600 The tens of thousands of people had built all this 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:04.480 tribute to death, and you know, we go to huge, 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:07.840 huge efforts to deal with that. We built awso warries, 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:11.879 we build catacombs under major cities, we build pyramids, we 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:16.000 build cathedrals, We dig holes six feet in the ground 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:18.240 when there's no need to and put bodies in them. 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:20.800 And yet here we say, as humans go. But why 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:23.639 would someone go to that extent for their loved ones? 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:28.119 And the answer is because they did. Even though they 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:31.119 didn't have our brain. Even though they didn't you know, 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:36.919 they aren't us, they clearly carried those same emotions and 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:43.880 feelings about death and perhaps the afterlife and things like that, 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:47.439 but certainly the emotions of death and love to to 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:52.840 make sure that their kin did not undergo the often 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:57.800 horrific processes that occur to things that are just left 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:01.679 to the decay process or an a the process of 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:05.480 scavengine that goes on outside, which is not particularly pleasant. 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:09.280 Whatever was their motivation they did that thing. 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:21.639 Now, as you discussed, there are of course other ways 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:25.080 that bones can find their way into caves and cave systems. 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:29.119 How do we eliminate such possibilities as predators bringing bones 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:32.000 down or water washing them down into the complex. 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:36.160 So that's just from a process of scientific analysis and 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:41.040 also a process of elimination. If carnivores or scavengers are 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:44.720 dealing with the dead, then they leave marks on them, 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:50.000 leave tooth marks, scratch marks, they dismember. They're doing it 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:53.600 almost certainly to eat the bodies, you know, because they're 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:59.280 not collecting. Humans are hominins and so that leaves very 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:03.800 character damage. So that doesn't exist on this very very 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:08.240 large sample of home on Letty and we're over thirty individuals, remember, 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:12.320 and lot thousands of bones, so there's no evidence of that. 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:17.680 So you can eliminate scavengers and predators. Then you get 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:19.240 to the point of, well, how do you know they 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:22.320 just all didn't go down there and die? So the 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:25.840 first part of that was, well, if they did, only 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:29.399 one species did that. That is, they went again and again, 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:32.320 and they did it over time. We can see that 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:37.080 there are events posed, imposed on events imposed on events, 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:40.360 so there's time involved in the accumulation, so that would 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:44.440 be odd, it wouldn't be impossible. But that was actually 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:47.720 for the first several years our initial hypothesis that they 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:52.199 were perhaps being brought there and just left there. It 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:55.520 was only when we then began to see that the 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:59.880 floor was actually not a bone bed, it was actually 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:04.679 sterile floor that then was interrupted by a pit or 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:10.680 a hole dug into the floor. That material was removed, 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:14.919 disrupting part of the sedimentary layers in the floor. A 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:17.320 fleshed body was put in. And the reason we know 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:20.320 that is that parts of bodies are articulated. And you 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:25.159 can see how the body dee compressed itself in the 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:27.919 sediments as it as it as it deteriorated, as the 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:32.439 spaces uh decayed within it. And then that body was 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:35.800 covered with dirt, the same dirt from the hole. We 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:39.399 can see the mixed up sedimentary layers. And then the 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:42.359 body went underwent natural collapse and decay and the and 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:44.680 the and the material sediment, and we can show all that. 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:48.240 You can show that through the analysis of the sedimentology 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:51.080 and the structure. Some people I know don't like that, 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:55.480 and one of the reasons is that simply we consider 0:20:56.280 --> 0:21:01.280 calling that a grave or a burial a human thing. 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:05.800 And so you know, if you don't want to call 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:08.200 it a grave, then it is a hole dug into 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:10.840 the floor with a body in it, covered with dirt. 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:14.280 You can call that what you want, but the implication 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:17.359 is is that they did that. Oh oh sorry, by 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:21.200 the way, sorry you asked about water. Water leaves very 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:27.760 characteristic geological signatures when water moves sediment. Anyone who's been 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:30.520 to a stream can see what happens. When water moves. 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:33.080 You get sorting, you get different sized rocks and pebbles 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:35.919 and things, so there's no sign of that. There's no 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:40.480 significant water movement of anything in that cave system. 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:45.160 Now, in terms of them bringing the dead down through 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:49.720 the cave system to this chamber, it's thought then that 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:52.359 they would have had fire, they would have had some 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:53.160 sort of light. 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:55.640 So we can see evidence of fire on the roof 0:21:55.840 --> 0:22:00.399 of that chamber, their soot blackened into the flow stones 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:02.919 that have grown over it. In fact, while I was 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:06.520 in the chamber, my colleague doctor Kenelway Mola Panne was 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:09.680 in dragons back doing an excavation and discovered at the 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:13.280 same moment I was in there a hearth. She uncovered 0:22:13.280 --> 0:22:17.639 a hearth where they had been cooking animal remains in 0:22:17.680 --> 0:22:22.760 the adjacent chamber. Now that's that's kind of cool, because 0:22:22.920 --> 0:22:25.399 there are no animal remains in the dental letti chamber 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:28.720 where the burials are. There are animal remains in the 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:31.640 dragon's back chamber, but there are no dental letti remains 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:35.040 in the Dragon's back chamber. So you've got this this 0:22:35.320 --> 0:22:39.680 what appears to be two differential uses of space, one 0:22:39.760 --> 0:22:43.600 where they cooked animal remains, the other where they buried 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:44.040 their dead. 0:22:44.640 --> 0:22:50.040 Wow. Now coming back to this, this cross hatch. Tell 0:22:50.119 --> 0:22:53.239 us about this cross hatch you discovered, and I mean, 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:55.879 and there are so many additional follow but like the 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:58.639 similarities to other marks that have been discovered, Like what 0:22:58.640 --> 0:22:59.560 are we to make of all of this? 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:03.520 So when I got into the cave, I had one 0:23:03.520 --> 0:23:06.240 of these and it's worth telling that moment again because 0:23:06.280 --> 0:23:10.520 it is. It was a really interesting moment. I decided 0:23:10.560 --> 0:23:13.399 I was not going to take any digital images or 0:23:13.440 --> 0:23:15.520 pictures because I've been watching this thing through a digital 0:23:15.560 --> 0:23:19.560 screen for seven years, and so I decided to narrate it, 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:23.280 to just talk. And if you watch Netflix documentary, you'll 0:23:23.320 --> 0:23:27.760 actually see me talking into a cell phone as I narrate, 0:23:27.840 --> 0:23:31.760 because I think that sometimes you see things better when 0:23:31.760 --> 0:23:35.159 you're forced to storytell as you as you, as you 0:23:35.240 --> 0:23:38.040 explain things. And I was narrating the space, and it 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:42.760 was clear to me almost immediately that my explorers in 0:23:42.800 --> 0:23:46.639 our team, our colleagues, had missed things, and one was 0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:50.240 the space had been altered. You could actually see where 0:23:50.240 --> 0:23:54.080 things like flowstones that's a layer of line like a rock, 0:23:54.160 --> 0:23:57.479 had been broken and moved uphill. And so it was 0:23:57.600 --> 0:24:01.000 very clear to me that we had misunderstood that they 0:24:01.000 --> 0:24:04.000 had interacted with this space. And as I was narrating that, 0:24:04.560 --> 0:24:08.159 there's this passageway that runs from where we land just 0:24:08.240 --> 0:24:10.760 after the shoot labyrinth where we land called the hill 0:24:10.760 --> 0:24:14.320