Deep inside South Africa’s Rising Star Cave system, scientists have uncovered a surprising clue about an extinct human relative that lived hundreds of thousands of years ago. For the first time, researchers have recovered and studied ancient proteins from Homo naledi fossils, revealing evidence that the cave may have contained an exclusively female burial site. The discovery, published in the journal Cell, raises an extraordinary possibility. The cave could represent the earliest known burial location reserved for one sex by a human relative other than Homo sapiens. Homo naledi lived…
