>>> The new discovery suggests
this species may have
intentionally buried the dead
and carved symbols off the
graves of the cave walls before
burials by modern humans.
Working in incredibly tight
spaces in the rising star case
in South Africa, a team of
researchers last year made these
and many other discoveries about
this ancient species.
Our next guest is part of that
expedition.
He was describing one of the
engravings after he discovered
it.
>> I can't believe what we're
seeing.
We're seeing scratch marks, sort
of, pictures of carvings or
carving the rock.
Look at the scale of these
things.
>> I'm so happy that we're
joined by the man you just saw.
Exploring residence and world
renowned -- okay, how do I say
this?
Paleoanthropologist.
He joins us now.
He authored it book that comes
out in August.
>> August.
>> "Cave of bones."
>> I get PTSD looking at that
image.
>> That is very claustrophobic
to begin with.
>> To get in there, you go down
about a 40-foot shaft that is --
gets down to 7 1/2 inches.
Average is 9 inches.
>> Absolutely not.
>> Guess how much weight you
lost to do it?
>> 55 pounds.
>> Because you wanted to see
this so much.
>> I had to test it.
We discovered these burials.
We realized there were burials
in 2018 on this "National
geographic" expedition.
I had only seen this thing
through video.
And we had the questions over
covid.
And we could not get them
answered.
There are only 47 humans that
had ever been in there.
We started making discoveries.
Our missions were focused.
We saw the symbols.
It blew my mind.
>> Do you know what they mean?
>> No.
And in essence --
>> How did you conclude what you
think they are?
>> This is not a human species.
They have a brain the third the
size of ours.
It's about the size of a
chimpanzee.
And they're carving symbols,
150,000 before even humans think
of doing that.
They look familiar to us.
Crosses, boxes, triangles, hash
tags.
They don't have Twitter.
>> I know that.
>> And, yet, we may never know
what they mean.
They were made for other
species, not us.
>> One thing that I know that I
took away from what I read about
the work that you've done on
this is that what you discovered
erases the belief in human
conceptionalism because of the
size of our brain.
>> We told this story since --
for thousands of years.
Why are we different?
We want to make ourselves
different.
One of the last things we had is
this big brain.
That just died just that with
this evidence.
We're not exceptional.
>> Can you explain that?
>> Yeah.
So humans have got this
narrative that our big brain is
super charged us.
Made us different.
Let's do culture and symbols,
music, art, all the things we
like to separate ourselves from
the animal kingdom.
Animal studies have shown us
that is not true.
Whales do incredible things.
Crows, they're brilliant.
But now we know that neither
were we exceptional in our
brain, the brain doesn't make us
whatever it is we are.
We now
250,000 years ago.
>> Your energy and passion tells
me that you are not but any
means done.
What's next in terms of your
research?
>> Firstly, we are bringing this
to the world.
We are going to engage the
entire scientific community how
to test he's hypotheses.
It's science.
It's ongoing.
Also asking the world, what do
we do with this?
What do we do with discovering
the first non-human species that
had our capabilities?
This is a special place for
them.
They took the dead of their kin
into remote areas and buried
them.
Do we destroy it in the way we
humans tend to, or do we take
care here?
I think it's a special -- it's
almost our first contact moment,
the real first contact moment.
>> Yeah.
Paleo anthropologist, Dr. Lee