00:02.00 alifeinruins Welcome to episode 161 of a life ruins podcast reinvestigate the careers and research of those living life ruins I'm your hosts cral tookover and I'm joined by my co-host Connor John and David Howe for this week's episode. We are joined by our regular guest depression now with that being said. 00:22.54 David Howe Did I ever tell you guys the story of my dad when I was talking to him updating. He's like house Carlton and I kind of updated them and he was like man the 3 of you have just terrible luck with women. Ah. 00:23.20 alifeinruins Depression's within the whole time. 00:35.62 Captain Sad Ah, you can join us at our other podcast. How to be bad with women with davy and Howe Carlton but 00:37.97 alifeinruins Yeah, how to how to how to stay single how to stay single. 00:46.50 David Howe All right? Well today we are going to talk about speaking of being dead inside today. We're going to talk about evidence for deliberate burials like homon leady today. We'll be about burial practices mortuary things auaries. 00:46.29 alifeinruins But yes, yeah, no transition this into the. 00:51.30 Captain Sad Um. 01:04.63 alifeinruins Ah, you can. 01:05.75 David Howe Um, homos like it's all that's all good guys. Okay I mean this is just Wednesday for me like like we're all good. 01:14.83 Captain Sad Ah, yeah work. 01:19.56 alifeinruins Oh my good. Oh my God that was great. Yeah home on a lead apparently according to to recent research that has come out by ah paper. 01:32.24 David Howe Lee Burger and associates. 01:37.61 Captain Sad Yeah. 01:37.63 alifeinruins Associates it is burger and associates int it. Yeah for some reason I thought that was a bobbas burgers joke I don't know why I'm sorry probably umm yes by burger at all 2023 evidence for deliberate barrel of the dead. 01:41.75 David Howe Um, great out me. There's probably some in there. 01:55.68 alifeinruins By Homo naledi. Um, this is this is a big deal for a number of reasons. Ah because in the as anthropology is topics are often debated sometimes violently but the concept of intentional burials By. Ah, the genus Homo is is one of those and so even when it comes to just talking about did Homo Um Nano Toensis bury. They're dead is a hotly debateta topic and um so the fact that what. 02:27.40 David Howe What was that species name. What what was that species name. You just said there here you go. That's right about to bust a fucking chair over your head. 02:29.71 Captain Sad Yeah, order, what's. 02:35.84 alifeinruins Homo sapiens and influences. 02:38.22 Captain Sad So when do you guys agree on that come on? yeah. 02:43.75 alifeinruins Um, and but homo to leady is is older than than Homo in the Homo tree. 02:54.52 David Howe It's older, but it's not like like homo erectus was making fire a million years ago and flint napping so three hundred thousand years ago is not that big a deal to me at least. 03:06.67 alifeinruins I'm trying to figure out where the hell it is on the family tree. 03:07.10 Captain Sad Well so it says so it's plus branch offw from where I can come. 03:11.60 alifeinruins You know, hold on you know who does know who's who's made and a whole video on I'm homeow the letter our buddy Stefan Mila give me a moment. 03:23.81 David Howe North O Two 03:35.60 alifeinruins I won you might not answer. We were talking about sushi earlier so you might think it's about that. Yeah Colton hey Stef how you doing man good. How's a good. It's going. Well I had got my sushi fixed the other day I bought something that was. 03:35.50 David Howe Don't tell him he's on the he's getnna. 03:54.20 alifeinruins It it said it was like fried um salmon but it it wasn't it was weird but I have a question for you. That's related to anthropology. Yeah yeah, um, so homo I'm just just about to go as a meeting I'm so sorry. Yes homo na leady. How old is it. Like 2 to 300000 I think 2 to 300 to 300000 I think okay in ah in Africa yeah South Africa perfect what makes them different from other homo species will make some different is that is so late survival of small brain hominids. We figured. They'd basically all died out with the evolution of homo erectus that big brain hominins would replace all small brained hominins because we're big and we're smart big brains blah buth. But then first homoluesiansis was found which is small brained. Um, but. Was sort of excused away because they're so on a small island in Indonesia and we were like oh well big brain hominin still dominated everywhere else a home in a lady is a small brained hominin in South Africa sort of right in the cradle of where humans evolved and seemingly survived for. Like well over a million years after the evolution of homo erectus so it's just sort of put a spanner in that like classic progression of human evolution that big brains dominated and replaced all small brain hominants because clearly there was 1 population of small brain hominins. Still. 05:08.67 David Howe He's reading a script. He's about to do a Zoom call about this with somebody. 05:25.18 alifeinruins Chilling in South Africa for ages after her erectus evolves awesome. Did you read that new paper that came out about them bearing. They're dead. Yeah well, it's just a pre print right? Um, but um. 05:42.77 alifeinruins I've I've been keeping over that I haven't read the preprint itself but they' basically arguing that they made they're that dead. Um well sounds good I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me I lets you get back to that Zoom call and then we need to set up our ah you coming out to ah. 05:43.93 David Howe Oh man, it's staying corrected. 06:00.77 alifeinruins Ah, nolins for essays twenty to 24? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I will actually say I guess I'm go to tell you I've been I've been hide it from you because I didn't want to say it? Oh god I I decided to not put that interview of you in the in my coopers ferry video if that's okay I don't make. Disappoint. That's I was wondering about that I was like what happened to that video. Yeah, that's totally fine I get it I'm trying to edit it now. But the problem was I interviewed like the nes pis tribal guy and I interviewed Lauren Davis the archaeologist and I both interviewed them for like an hour and a half because and but obviously hours was just 5 minutes before I dropped you off at the airport just like and it just looked too strange just like you just popping up and being like certainly a possibility you we just hadt spoken enough to you like you know'd be like who's this random guy just popping up. This is not just saying. It's possible. It just like too strange. That's fair. Well I appreciate it. Man. Well I'll talk to you later? Yeah, all right, take it easy by stuff sam but. 07:08.38 David Howe Connor put in the chat while that was happening is why is he so much better than us. 07:14.31 Captain Sad It's off the cuff man and did it all like that. It's it's impressive the one and only stiffan Stefan Milo Nilo the best 07:17.81 David Howe The kid loves xantro. 07:19.91 alifeinruins That's the without all right? So 200 to three hundred thousand years ago 07:26.10 David Howe Yeah, and kind of like I was saying like it homo erectus had been long established by then and I guess to to sum up what Carlton or Stefan was saying is like there's still like this small branch of like oustralipp Otralippi or otralopathine. 07:30.93 alifeinruins Yeah. 07:43.64 alifeinruins Astropathicines. 07:44.47 David Howe Oustralapithicineish I guess that's the word to look for um, like a lineage that's still going on there and that's what naledi is so to me like if there's homo erectus making we know homo erectus had fire a million years ago so homo nuledi could have been like you know monkey see and monkey do that. 07:59.82 alifeinruins Well aren't we all just author of ahtralothecines hanging out. 08:01.77 David Howe Um, or just ah I would say we're all home erect is hanging out. Oh oh oh yeah, yes. 08:04.47 Captain Sad Some days I feel like it. 08:12.95 Captain Sad Um, and just to mention this this is found in 1 cave in like a super intense cave system in and South Africa so this is like the really ah only known instance of no leady um was kind of hit the scene was it like two or three years ago was this kind of new kind of. 08:28.46 David Howe Yeah, they found it in 2013 but it kind of dropped two years ago a year ago. 08:33.47 alifeinruins Yeah, so discovered and denal eti chamber of the rising star cave system in South Africa by during an expedition led by Lee Berger beginning October Twenty thirteen 08:33.47 Captain Sad Yeah, yeah. 08:40.28 David Howe Branching store. 08:46.98 alifeinruins And November of 2013 March Twenty Fourteen over 1550 specimens from at least 15 hoowel led individuals were recovered from this site. 08:58.60 Captain Sad Interesting note that yeah, there's only you could only he could only take really small people into the cave like he had to employ like a bunch of um like smaller gentlemen and smaller women because it was such a tight fit to get back into these areas. Um I don't know if there's like a documentary out there. But there's some really cool articles about that kind of stuff. So yeah, this is this is a big thing. Um, and if they are indeed burying their dead it it changes a lot and really kind of challenges. Some of our thoughts about the earliest human burial practices which we I think we associate with like probably what Ho and Neanderthal end is or homo sapiensneath and. 09:35.34 alifeinruins Debt. Yeah, definitely homo sapien or Homomo Sapis lensis ah definitely associated with them because it because it gets wrapped up where when we really talk about 2 major things identity. Um, care or maybe not 2 major things but definitely like care of another individual or altruism and then concepts of the dev or the afterlife. Usually these concepts are really looked at between neanderthals and homo sapiens sapiens. Yeah. 10:07.96 David Howe Modern humans. Yeah. 10:12.58 alifeinruins And so it's hotly debated. Whether neanderthals did it. There's there's limited evidence which we'll talk to talk about in a bit but nothing else beyond that. Oh yes, exactly. 10:20.31 David Howe Of Intentional like buried or placed burials like this yeah because like elephants obviously have burial grounds and stuff like that other animals do too and like chimps kind of mourn their dead. They don't really bury them but they. Like easily older hominids could have just been like you know, not a scaffold burial I guess but just left them somewhere and like cried and then left I don't know like it's entirely Possible. Um. 10:46.57 alifeinruins Now. 10:48.29 Captain Sad Yeah, um, let me let me read the abstract real quick if I'm allowed to read in this podcast anymore. Um, okay so this is for the the burger article. So. 10:54.16 alifeinruins Yeah, absolutely. 11:01.79 Captain Sad Recent excavations in the rising star cave system of South Africa have revealed burials of the extinced homeman nope I'm done guys someone else read it just kidding I'll get okay 1 more time. 11:10.39 David Howe Ah, which which one you looking at burger. Yeah. 11:15.18 Captain Sad Recent excavations in the rising star cave system of South Africa have revealed burials of the extinct hominin species hoow the leady a combination of geological and anatomical evidence shows that hominins dug holes that disrupted the subsurface stratigraphy and interred the remains of homun leady individuals. Resulting in at least 2 discrete resulting in at least 2 discrete features within the d naleti chamber and the hale antechamber these are the most ancient interments yet recorded in the Hominin record earlier than evidence of homo sapiens interments by at least one hundred thousand years these internments along with other evidence suggest that diverse mortuary practices may have been conducted by homonol eti within the cave system these discoveries show that mortuary practices are not limited to homo sapiens or other homonyms with large brain size. 12:07.60 David Howe Yeah, so pretty big stuff. Ah but I don't want to keep hammering and I don't mean to diminish the the paper. But I this Arizona Grid I can't remember his name. Um. 12:08.38 alifeinruins Yeah. 12:25.42 Captain Sad Was that the guy who was at a um yeah, what's his name. 12:25.53 David Howe Him and I were talking laprele. Yeah not Tony great guy. Awesome! We text I forget his name right now. Um, he ah him and I were talking at the water screens one day and like somebody was asking us about human evolution and I just said like I don't know if you'd agree with this dude Rob that's his name. Like I don't know if you hear this ra but like I think we're all just mutant homo erectus like denisovans neanderthals modern humans. We're all just some evolution of homo erectus that got regionalized and then innerbred and he was like no absolutely like it's just the easiest way to think of it. So if that's going on. And like this naledi thing is definitely not an offshoot of homo erectus. It's it's ah it's a different I don't know if it's a different branch I'd have to see like the tree but to my understanding. 13:11.65 Captain Sad I Don't think they've like figured it out either. 13:13.17 alifeinruins Yeah, but you could look at a million different trees I don't think that's the 1 thing I fucking can't stand about paleo anthropology look up a human tree. All of them are different like no one can agree we did did we do a whole episode on lumpers and splitters and stuff like that. Yeah. 13:18.30 David Howe It just keeps changing. 13:26.81 David Howe We did. But it's like when you go from canto to Jodo and you're like wait. So there's ah ah, a primal form of peach you that was called peach you and no one in canto figured that out for hundreds of years but you just cross this waterfall and go across to Jodo and and that then there's ah, there's a baby peekach you like what. 13:42.22 Captain Sad I Just love how you have that like keyed up and really go so good. 13:47.17 alifeinruins Aren't there 2 more before p two two because there's the meanest one in the plus one and that's in another region like yeah, there's. 13:52.53 David Howe Ah I can't even remember but there's a prejiggly puff There's a or togay like well no, they figured out togay how did they not know that pokemon laid eggs in the first one professor oak was the shittiest professor of all time and then they went. And then there's professor elm and he was like hey these things actually breed and make eggs and like despite some of them being mammals and despite most of them being reptiles or dinosauric. Why or that why do they have so anyway, it's like it's like that homo noledi is like crossing into Jodo or later on when they have Pokemon X and y they have a whole other just. Area of the world where no one was in contact with the other with new pokemon species 500 of them that are just not were not in the original pokemon game. So. 14:33.97 Captain Sad Yeah, and it's there's also been not have been enough time. There hasn't been enough time and so and this stuff study enough to really do the genetics and and things like that this is going to take years and years to kind of flesh out exactly where this comes from saying with the denise of ins or Denis ovans. 14:37.77 alifeinruins Goodness. 14:52.30 Captain Sad That information is so sparse and so small that like we need like a bigger sample size and that's also some beef I have with paleo anthropology is that the sample size on this shit is like not significant even remotely. 14:53.70 David Howe Um, yeah. 15:01.65 David Howe Tiny let me see. 15:04.33 alifeinruins I could think of after David's Pokemon comparison was that scene from Billy Madison Mr. how what do you have? just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I've ever heard at no point in your rambling incoherent response or even close to anything that could have been considered irrational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it I award you no points and make god mercy on your soul. 15:28.61 David Howe I respectfully disagree that was a great analogy for people who play bo aboutd ah, but no, that is funny I never seen Billie Madison actually ah I it's one of those shows that movies that pops on like comedy central or Fx or something and I just never like fully watched it. 15:33.81 Captain Sad What. 15:35.71 alifeinruins Um I don't think I finished the whole thing. Um. 15:45.00 David Howe Um, kind of like terminator any of those. Okay I'm looking at a thing where is homo na leadti on this bad boy Homo na Leady is an offshoot of Homo Habilis ah homodophin Homo erect. So this is fucked I don't like what is this one. This is this upends. What I talk about. 15:56.94 alifeinruins Um. 16:00.70 alifeinruins Well remember there's only 1 cave. They're found with these number of individuals now. Granted this is this this system has the single most amount of individuals in Africa outside of homo sapiens like in terms of like this site is is peculiar for a number of reasons. But I am interested in then as as we were talking looking at the publications and who did this right? as we've talked about when it comes to paleoanology from a number of our paleoanthhopologists have come on about the paleo anthe mafia like do we think our boy burger is like this is his gatekeeping possibly. As other I don't know I'm just doing that out there. He's he found the site. He's publishing. It. 16:38.30 David Howe I did think about that because there's like you can only have tiny people go in there into the caves and yeah he had to lose £55 to fit in there himself. It said? Um, yeah I mean he probably had to like starve himself to get that skinny to get in there I don't know what he looks like and in general. But um. 16:48.12 alifeinruins Good for him. 16:49.54 Captain Sad I respect. 16:57.81 David Howe Privacy scene face. But anyway regardless like they took plenty of pictures. It looks like though. So what you see there is what you get, but all it it is I could see how some people might find it gateke that like you know, only 12 people have been in here to see it. Um, yeah. 17:13.33 Captain Sad Yeah, but they did they did I think they extracted that stuff and so yeah and they and they have published all their figures and and methods and stuff like that. So if you're if you do check out the article. Um, eventually when it comes out there is it's 133 pages 17:16.54 David Howe It seems like top-tier science to me. 17:29.21 Captain Sad Full of figures and and different sort of analysis and stuff like that. So I I do respect them for that. Um I mean there probably is an element of Mafia involved just because he's a high profile name and he he probably gets some sort of preferential treatment in publishing and things like that I wouldn't doubt that at all. But um. 17:31.90 alifeinruins Yeah, yeah. 17:39.40 alifeinruins Here. 17:49.15 Captain Sad We'd like to think it's good science but we'll I think the the jury is still out on that and ah I think this this little little segment here is out too so we will be right back.