Science & technology | Homo naledi

A tiny, ancient hominin may have been surprisingly clever

Small brains seem to be no barrier to culture and art

Archaeologist and biological anthropologist Keneiloe Molopyane works with a colleague in the Rising Star cave system, South Africa.
Image: Mathabela Tsikoane

“The March of progress”, created by Rudolph Zallinger in 1965, is an image that has launched a thousand T-shirts. It shows a line-up of six figures. The first is hunched and ape-like. The rest become gradually taller and straighter until eventually a neatly shaven Homo sapiens strides into the future.

This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “A tangled history”

Ukraine strikes back

From the June 10th 2023 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from Science & technology

A silhouette view of the peloton

Why carbon monoxide could appeal to the discerning doper

Professional cycling is debating whether to ban the poisonous gas

Drainage canals (linear features that drain into a small meandering river) seen from above.

A sophisticated civilisation once flourished in the Amazon basin

How the Casarabe died out remains a mystery


Three rotated avocados made from small numbers

Heritable Agriculture, a Google spinout, is bringing AI to crop breeding

By reducing the cost of breeding, the firm hopes to improve yields and other properties for an array of important crops


Could supersonic air travel make a comeback?

Boom Supersonic’s demonstrator jet exceeds Mach 1

Should you worry about microplastics?

Little is known about the effects on humans—but limiting exposure to them seems prudent

Wasps stole genes from viruses

That probably assisted their evolutionary diversification