Almost Human

In 2013, Lee Berger, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, caughtwind of a cache of bones in a hard-to-reach underground cave in South Africa. Heput out a call around the world for petite collaborators--men and women smalland adventurous enough to be able to squeeze through 8-inch tunnels to reach asunless cave 40 feet underground. With this team of "underground astronauts,"Berger made the discovery of a lifetime: hundreds of prehistoric bones, includingentire skeletons of at least 15 individuals, all perhaps two million years old. Theirfeatures combined those of known prehominids like Lucy, the famousAustralopithecus, with those more human than anything ever before seen inprehistoric remains. Berger's team had discovered an all new species, and theycalled it Homo naledi.