the evidences indicating the image of God in Homo floresiensis can only consist of the extensive presence of Oldowan-type stone tools and putative sea-faring. These evidences give us moderate confidence that H. floresiensis was human. Finally, the discoveries pertaining to H. naledi at Rising Star Cave in South Africa present an array of data that is rapidly developing as researchers make and announce new discoveries. The discovery of thousands of H. naledi bones in the deep reaches of the cave system points to frequent, purposeful excursions and resists other explanations, such as catastrophic emplacement, predator bone accumulations, or the remains of a lost group of organisms. Several unique features of the Dinaledi assemblage led Dirks et al. (2015) to conclude that it was formed by intentional body disposal: its enormous size, remote placement, temporal span, and the scarcity of remains from other species. The subsequent discovery of craniofacial bones from a juvenile H. naledi, found on a shelf in the passages beyond the bone-containing Dinaledi Chamber, suggests that the skull had been deliberately placed at that location and provided additional evidence that H. naledi were utilizing the Dinaledi Chamber over some time (Brophy et al. 2021). More recently, researchers presented evidence of abundant and complex fire use throughout the cave, but the description of this evidence has yet to be published at the time of this writing. Berger et al. (2023a) reported excavating two “features” interpreted as burials or graves. One feature in the Dinaledi Chamber contained elements of a single skeleton in an oval-shaped area of sediment disturbance surrounded by sediments that contained no bone. The second feature, located in the Hill Antechamber, contains numerous elements from a juvenile along with elements from at least two other individuals (all H. naledi). The paper further described a stone (Hill Antechamber Artifact 1) that was found associated with the juvenile skeleton, located near or within the skeleton’s right hand. An additional report (Berger et al. 2023b) described engraved lines in the walls of the bone-containing chambers, which the authors attribute to H. naledi. Given the moderate hardness of the dolomite pillar on which the engravings were made, along with their precision and the depth into the rock, some form of tool must have been used to produce these markings. Given the preliminary nature of these announcements, we caution against too quickly and too dogmatically interpreting these new and unverified findings. For example, figures accompanying the putative burials do not reconstruct the posture of either body when it was emplaced in the chamber. The elements are described as in articulation or near articulation (Berger et al. 2023a), but only some of that articulation can be confirmed in the figures (e.g., the maxillary teeth, right hand, and right foot of the Hill Antechamber feature). With H. naledi’s mature height of around 1.2 m, any mature body would have to be folded into a fetal position to fit in the reported dimensions of the first feature (50 by 25 cm). This posture is not clear from the diagrams of the Dinaledi Chamber feature, though the distribution of elements in the Hill Antechamber feature is consistent with such a posture. The purported “artifact” found with the second feature is known only from high resolution synchrotron scans and remains sealed in the field jacket in which the entire feature, skeleton and all, was excavated. Finally, the engravings have not been linked conclusively with H. naledi. The published report consists only of a description of the finding, and no direct chemical or physical tests on the engravings were conducted (Berger et al. 2023b). Nonetheless, the confluence of all these evidences together presents a very tantalizing picture. The simplest explanation would be that H. naledi utilized the cave extensively, made fires and stone tools, carved symbols on the wall, and had a complex relationship with deceased members of their families or tribe. Alternative hypotheses are much less parsimonious, as they require individuals from other, as-yet-undiscovered species to coincidentally explore this remote cave, employ extensive use of fire, and carve symbols onto cave pillars, all without leaving behind any skeletal evidence that positively identifies them as a different group. Such scenarios also do not satisfactorily explain how the remains of so many H. naledi were distributed so widely within the cave system, or the particulars of the putative burials. Thus far, the only hominin remains in the Rising Star Cave belong to H. naledi, so the likelihood is that H. naledi ventured deep into this cave frequently to dispose of its dead. We believe that the quality of evidence in Rising Star Cave resembles the quality of evidence for Neandertal cognition; the main difference being the much greater amount of evidence available for the better studied Neandertals. We therefore consider these reports to be moderately favorable to the advanced cognition evidences we here associate with the image of God, even as we recognize that our assessment could change as additional data are published. Beyond these hominins, however, the evidence is considerably less certain for other hominins. Oldowan-type stone tools are known from at least 2.5 Ma on the conventional timescale (Semaw et al. 1997; but see also Harmand et al. 2015), but these tools are found in east Africa, where numerous hominin species likely coexisted. To which taxon we ought to attribute these earliest individual tool discoveries is unclear, and there is certainly no definitive evidence of other complex behaviors alongside these tools (e.g., the first evidence of fire does not appear until less than a million years ago on the conventional time scale; Berna et al 2012). While the intentional design and shaping of an Acheulean hand ax strongly suggests human cognition at work, the simple flakes and cores of Oldowan tools might plausibly have been produced by nonhuman apes, given that similar artifacts have been produced by a population of extant monkeys (Proffitt et al. 2016). Indeed, a recent report implicated Paranthropus in the use of Oldowan-type tools (Plummer et al. 2023). Even if we accepted the most ancient tools as human technology, we cannot confidently associate the artifacts with any specific fossil form that might otherwise be considered human. C. Taxa without Cultural Artifacts Without clear evidence of human cognition, there remains a considerable number of fossil hominins whose classification as human or ape must depend solely on their skeletal anatomy (or, in the case of the Denisovans, DNA analysis). Well-attested forms include Australopithecus africanus, known from numerous sites in South Africa, Au. afarensis, known from sites in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania, and several forms of Paranthropus, known from sites in South Africa and east Africa. Other fossil forms are well attested by skeletal evidence but from only one location. Au. sediba consists of two partial skeletons from the Malapa site in South Africa (Berger et al. 2010). Ardipithecus is known from a partial skeleton and additional ROSS, BRUMMEL, AND WOOD Human History: From Adam to Abraham 2023 ICC 71
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