Discovery of prehistoric female-only cemetery changes what we know about early human society

[IwantToRetire]

Evidence suggests very early development of prehistoric female cultural identity

New scientific evidence is now revealing that, some 300,000 years ago, a little-known and now long-extinct species of hominid - Homo naledi - developed what appears to have been a very complex form of communal organisation, involving extreme sex-based cultural segregation and very strong female gender identity.

The evidence strongly suggests that the species segregated dead males and females - and that potentially implies that the two sexes may well also have been socially and culturally segregated during their lives. It suggests that the female of the species developed a form of very strong gender-based cultural identity that may, potentially in some respects, have been a form of prehistoric feminism.

Ancient protein tests on their teeth have revealed that the species seem to have operated female-only cemeteries. What's more, some evidence strongly suggests that the individuals who transported those deceased females to their final resting place (a remote cave inside a hill) and then actually buried them, were themselves also female.

The species' males are archaeologically totally invisible. None have ever been found - and archaeologists have absolutely no idea what their role in society was or where they were buried.

Full article at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/rising-star-cave-homo-naledi-feminism-cemetery-south-africa-b3002113.html

Fascinating. Thank you.

Sounds sensible and I hope it comes into fashion again soon

My theories...

They killed and ate male offspring, keeping just a handful captive for stud purposes.

They had evolved to produce very few male offspring in the first place.

They lived like lions, with the women and children forming a hunter-gatherer collective, whilst males lived a solitary and brutish life in the wild, emerging only occasionally to fight each other to the death, steal food, and inseminate the females.

I don't get what the author thinks 'gender identity' has to do with it 🙄

If gender identity isn't mentioned in pieces like this is it even an article in the Independent? I'm just surprised they didn't try to shoehorn in evidence of a white European who'd rocked up in the past and spoiled their trans utopia by teaching them the difference between males and females. Probably at spear point.

The mention of the island where Rwandans took the bodies of women who'd died in childbirth brought a lump to my throat.

The mention of the island where Rwandans took the bodies of women who'd died in childbirth brought a lump to my throat.

Yes I was taken aback on reading that. I wonder how many other archaeological finds there have been, where because it is primarily men doing the work they haven't recognised something that is clearly about some thing to do or unique to women.

And this must be the basis of a Netflix series!

Much of the exploratory work inside Rising Star Cave (where the Homo naledi female cemetery is) was initially carried out by a group of six women scientists, nicknamed the "Underground Astronauts" - because of the difficulty and danger involved in reaching the cave's main chamber. They had been selected by the expedition leader, Lee Berger, who had used social media to recruit scientists with experience in paleontological excavations and caving but were also small enough and slender enough to crawl through the cave's extraordinarily narrow access passages. Indeed one of the most challenging passages was dubbed "Superman's Crawl," because, to pass through it, the scientists had to extend one arm forward - similar to images of Superman in flight.

Underground Astronauts!

Original article:
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(26)00644-6

Indeed one of the most challenging passages was dubbed "Superman's Crawl," because, to pass through it, the scientists had to extend one arm forward - similar to images of Superman in flight.

They've missed a trick there. Supergirl flies like that as well. If only women go in there, it should be called "Supergirl's Crawl." Because she is female (and DC haven't fucked that up yet).

Erm...

How did the prehistoric women find the cave? And how did a modern woman re-find it? There is no way I’d take myself off for a crawl through a superman/girl tunnel to see what was at the end of it. The original woman must have done it in the dark? And then they had to shove a dead body through the tunnel to bury them in a cave? This amazes me, that was not easy, they had sophisticated thinking determination and id love to understand their motivation to do something as hard as that.

agree re Rwanda, tragic.

I've been thinking more about the Rwandan island. I like to think it was done like the Spartans apparently did, interred the women who died in childbirth as warriors who died in battle, to do them honour. It could be for other reasons entirely. To keep 'bad luck' safely contained for example. There's undoubtedly more information out there but I chose to believe the former.

Similarly, the motivation of this ancient human species is unknown. Whether to do them honour, because they were terrified of them, a mixture or something else entirely, seems unlikely to be known for sure. Whatever it was it must have been extremely important to go to all that effort. The fact they discovered these tunnels demonstrates they were curious and their lives weren't just surviving from day to day.

Maybe men buried at sea or in rivers like Vikings or burnt

It’s all about sex determination. There is no speculation about ‘gender identity’.

Exactly. Rely on UK news papers and everything is viewed through the rainbow lens.

How did the prehistoric women find the cave? And how did a modern woman re-find it?

It is the quote I posted in the OP.

I think the caves were discovered years ago, and it was only recently someone thought lets go deeper, which hadn't happened because the passages were so small.

So the advertised for women with the relevant skills and found the 5 or was it 6 who became the "Underground Astronauts" - which was why I thought this is the plot for a Netflix series.

I have wondered, but it isn't mentioned, whether over time there has been ground movement.

Have just seen a comment has been added to the newspaper article:

Their society thrived until the fateful day they let the men take charge.

Fascinating. And a compelling story.

'...the accuracy of morphology-based sex estimation can be greatly influenced by sex ratios and by the level of intersexual variability within species, factors that are difficult to establish for extinct taxa due in part to small sample sizes.10 The challenges of estimating the skeletal sex of ancient individuals, especially those in deep time, are further compounded by the degradation and incompleteness of skeletal remains'

I find it astonishing that 300,000 years old skeletons of a pre-humanoid can be sexed!

This article has pictures:

https://archaeologymag.com/2025/09/homo-naledi-deliberately-buried-their-dead/

I am sure I saw on one article, which of course I know cant find, a plan showing the route the Astronauts took.

Will keep looking.

Surely "gender identity" is a bit relevant to this article because it's about cultural practices, not just sex. Eg dogs don't decide "I'm a girl dog, your a boy dog I'll be the one to have puppies". But for cultural practices (of which burial is one) there is presumably a thought process and a noticing of diferences. E.g noticing that women and men are different because women have the babies (and other stuff obviously) and consciously creating practices and traditions around those differences. There isn't anything instinctual about burying women in a different place to men. Or about burying people in a particular way. It shows a higher level of cognitive awareness, culture and communication so it is relevant.
However, I also don't think this supports a TRA argument. If anything it shows that noticing sexual differences is not some crazy outcome of colonialism or modern patriarchy.

The other possibility is, as others said, that it wasn't a cultural practice but a result of their being less men, or that genus of hominids having an instinctive difference that caused women to form a group and men to be isolated from it.

I’m still staggered that this team of archaeologists were gathered. They must have had a hunch there was something useful down there? I’m confident that is more to that than “oh, there’s a hole. Ideal for dead or discoveries”

Regardless, this is an amazing story and thanks for sharing it @IwantToRetire

If you read the article it explains.

ie they knew it was something different.

They knew they had to recruit women.

Women who not only had the archeology skills but caving experience.

Now beginning to think it shouldn't be a netflix series, but a big block buster film like indiana jones, and of course called:

Underground Astronauts

They should come on here and do an AMA thread. There would be loads of interesting questions. Not least the point @Seriestwo made about how it originally came to exist when it is so inaccessible!

Where did that quote come from? I can't find it in the article you quote.

I'm puzzled, actually. "The species' males are archaeologically totally invisible. None have ever been found - and archaeologists have absolutely no idea what their role in society was or where they were buried." (from the Independent article) - so if no dead males have been found, how can we be sure that all the skeletons are actually female? The article does say, "most male hominids (of various species) have tended to be 15-50% larger than female ones" but it seems that for Homo Naledi we don't have any skeletons that are thought to be male.

It’s what the scientific paper linked to in a subsequent post explains - obviously in pretty technical terms. They were able to analyse certain proteins which have different mutations depending on sex.

@Persephonia1966 - well yes, it seems to have been a gendered society - different burial customs defined by their sex, and who knows what other cultural practices. That doesn’t imply that any of these people had anything like a concept of ‘gender identity’ rather than more simply, like most people nowadays, they just knew which sex they were.