I have reported on American-born South African paleoanthropologist Lee Berger many times here on HotNews. And it was not exactly the material that would raise and glorify him. In fact, since I first heard about him, which was sometime in 2011, this person did not make a good impression on me. Time proves to me that I was not wrong when I retained a dose of disinclination towards him, but above all towards his discoveries.

“How NOT to research”

Long story short, Lee Berger came to the fore in the media spotlight around 2006. At the time, the man was leading an archaeological research campaign in Palau, where he later claimed to have discovered the prehistoric remains of a small-bodied hominid species, akin to the much better-known Homo floresiensis, discovered less than a decade earlier in Indonesia.

Further analyzes by professional paleoanthropologists showed that Berger was clearly mistaken. Not only was it not another species, but the individuals there displayed normal traits that fit into the patterns and variability of the Homo sapiens species. This must have been a sign of Lee Berger’s appetite for spectacle. But then few people paid attention to it, because no, no one is perfect.

Just a few years later, in 2010, Berger struck again and announced that he had discovered another prehistoric species, until then completely unknown, this time in South Africa. It was, he argued in the journal Science, not just a new species of Australopithecus, but even the “most likely” ancestor of the genus Homo. And that’s somewhere around 2 million years ago, probably not counting that Homo erectus, an individual that evolved much better than the species

Australopithecus appeared around the same time.

Berger’s problem was that he was never afraid of ridicule. His reports and discoveries took place under the flashes of journalistic cameras and spotlights of video cameras. The following conferences were a real media show. The marketing campaigns, in which replicas of the remains of the Australopithecus in question were put up for sale as jewelry or figurines, were even more shocking, especially since they were made under the auspices of Berger.

Ian Tattersall, a specialist at the Museum of Natural History in New York, one of the “difficult” profile researchers of the last century, called the whole shameful spectacle “a mixture of ego, paranoia, ownership and intellectual mercantilism.” And he was right. In addition to the play, Berger was increasingly challenged scientifically. Although in South Africa, thanks to his efforts, Australopithecus sediba (as he named the species)

became a cultural symbol, most scientists remained reserved about its very existence.

One view that Berger was unable to disprove was that A. sediba is actually an ostrich camel made from a mixture of the fossil remains of several modern prehistoric species. Despite this, if we consider Australopithecus as a separate species, it falls under the morphological variability of the species discovered in 1924, Australopithecus africanus.

But let’s get back to it, you see, because Berger also quickly moved on to another discovery, and apparently it also involved a whole new species. We are talking about 2013. It was only three years after the discovery mentioned above, and it was a year when Berger was still publishing the so-called Australopithecus sediba studies. Somehow, in just seven years, Le Berger, according to his own statements, discovered three species of hominids, completely unknown to the scientific world. A feat that no other prehistorian in the entire history of profile research has been able to achieve.

This latest case involved the fossil remains of at least 15 individuals belonging to a primitive species, one with a skull size of about 400-600 cubic centimeters (somewhat similar to Australopithecus or the supposed Homo habilis, the first representative of the genus Homo). All the individuals were discovered in a hard-to-reach cave chamber in the Rising Star karst system, located about 50 kilometers from Johannesburg.

This time, apart from the famous media shows and the aggressiveness of the advertising, the speed with which Lee Berger identified the new species as belonging to the genus Homo was striking. Homo naledi he told her. Usually, experts said in unison, it takes about a decade to reach such a conclusion, never a few months. Donald Johanson, the man who in 1974 discovered the fossil remains of the famous Lucy, the most famous member of the species Australopithecus afarensis, said he was amazed at the way Lee Berger did things. “This is exactly how research should NOT be done,” Johansson was quoted as saying by The New Yorker.

Tim White, a paleontologist at the University of California, another reference name in prehistoric studies, was a little more reserved. “The fact that everything moves slowly in this science is explained by the attention that needs to be paid to each individual discovery. You should be sure before you post anything. Rushing is something very dangerous,” he told The Guardian when Lee Berger announced his latest discovery.

For example, it took Tim White, the man who discovered the fossil remains of Ardipithecus ramidus, a possible ancestor of Australopithecines, 14 years to publish the results of his research. As I mentioned, Berger did it in less than six months. Oh, and should I mention that the South African’s entire mining campaign lasted exactly three weeks in November 2013, followed by a short campaign in March 2014?

Lee Berger, a controversial man

In the last article where I mentioned Lee Berger, about two months ago, I said that the South African paleoanthropologist independently collected fossils of the two species mentioned above, Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi, and then sent them into outer space via Virgin’s Space Shuttle VSS Unity Galactic.

And this time, the scientific community reacted violently, but in vain. Lee Berger continues to do what he sees fit without following any canon. This is how the images of his colleagues in the South African scientific environment appeared. Less well known was the fact that Berger is close to South African multi-billionaire Tim Nash. In fact, it was Nash who paid the astronomical costs of the fossils’ space flight.

Tim Nash is also a large landowner. Among them are those on which Berger’s discoveries were made. Surprisingly, no other specialist from South African universities received his consent to conduct archaeological research in this area. Only Lee Berger. So, as I’ve mentioned in the past, Berger is behaving as if it has a discretionary monopoly on significant discoveries in South Africa.

But the aspect I wanted to emphasize is related to other interpretations of the mentioned researcher. In a series of so-called studies, this individual claimed that Homo naledi, a species he dated from 2 million years to only 300,000 years old, was not only capable of creating early forms of art, but even practiced the first forms of burial. in the history of the human race. I point out that they were doing this 130,000, even 180,000 years before any other human species.

In a world dominated by individuals with a higher cranial volume (see the case of Neanderthals who reached 1500 cubic cm), anyway, these Homo naledi with only 400-600 cubic cm of cranial volume, with a maximum height of 1.5 meters and about 45 kilograms in weight (sizes that qualify them rather as Australopithecus forms), they faced everything and made a transition to higher symbolic behavior. Incredibly, Lee Berger actually supported and still supports it.

Meanwhile, in addition to his extensive work with National Geographic, Berger also has a Netflix documentary in which he appears as the man rewriting history. Or backstory. However, he avoids naming the most important data there. For example, how clear and reliable his dating is. Or framing. Or the scientific method by which he arrived at the idea of ​​cave art and burials within a species with such primitive features.

Reverse of the medal

The idea for this material arose in a recently published study by an Australian-Spanish group of experts. Among them is Maria Martinon-Torres, a researcher at the National Institute for the Study of Human Evolution in Burgos, Spain, a well-known name in specialized research. Also Michael D. Petraglia, another heavyweight in the study of prehistory, a specialist at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, and a man who has devoted the last decades to archaeological excavations in South Asia. All of these authors signed off on a study published in the Journal of Human Evolution in which they analyze in detail both Lee Berger’s claims and the evidence he provides for them. And in principle, they completely dismantle the entire charade of the South African.

First of all, the authors of the mentioned study claim, Berger has no evidence that the inscriptions discovered on one of the cave walls, cataloged as cave art, were made by the so-called Homo naledi. The fact that only their fossils were found in the cave does not support the idea that they are sign makers. Anyone could go in there to make them. And these marks cannot be dated, another important point that Lee Berger missed.

The fact that Homo naledi would have lit a fire in the cave (the site of the discovery of the osteological remains does not receive natural light) has no cover. Some traces of coal found in the cave could have got there naturally. Natural fires in caves are not unusual, emphasize the previously mentioned experts. The so-called artifact, a primitive tool in the sense of Berger, according to the authors of the study, is nothing more than a natural rock, without any traces of human intervention. The icing on the cake of Berger’s claims, however, was the dismantling of notions about burial practices

Homo naledi.

These are completely inadequate statements, the above-mentioned experts emphasized, some of them cannot contradict the idea of ​​bone accumulation after purely natural actions. In fact, the processes by which osteological remains are moved and deposited naturally at different points in the cave are well known in the prehistoric world. Probably not Berger. In conclusion, without shying away from sharp terms, I am convinced that we are dealing with a prankster in search of fame, and not with the pioneer, as he presents himself. The fact that the scientific community is slowly beginning to respond to this and correct it only confirms the first opinion I formed about it.

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