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Almost Human: The Astonishing Tale of Homo Naledi and the Discovery That Changed Our Human Story
It was the find of a lifetime: The bones of multiple individuals, hidden deep underground in the region of South Africa called the Cradle of Humankind. Only the slimmest expedition members could squeeze through the jagged rock channels to reach the cave and its amazing treasures. In this freewheeling tale of science and exploration, celebrated paleoanthropologists Lee Berger and John Hawks tell the story of how Berger and his team discovered rich caches of fossils representing all-new species on the human family tree. How old are these bones? How did they get so deep underground? What do they tell us about our earliest ancestors? Berger's answers transform our sense of who we are and how we got here.
288 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 9, 2017
About the author
Lee Berger
4 books89 followersLee Berger is a palaeoanthropologist and explorer, he is is the author of Almost Human: The Astonishing Tale of Homo Naledi
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December 2, 2022
Paleoanthropologists, as a rule, spend their professional lifetimes in wishful pursuit of just one significant new hominid identification - Lee Berger has two.
“It just shows that you can never stop looking. Just because something has been studied for years doesn't mean that it can't still tell us new things”
Berger might be the most controversial figure in a profession populated with highly controversial figures. On the one hand, some of his contemporaries consider him a selfish and egotistical showman. On the other hand, he has “open-accessed” his projects for participation and study by scientists and students from all over the world, something no other paleontologist has ever done. I would think, if one were truly selfish and egotistical, one would restrict access to one’s own discoveries, ensuring personal credit for all comparative analysis and authorship (or co-authorship) of all scientific papers. In other words, if someone were selfish and egotistical one would behave like those scientists who claim that Berger is selfish and egotistical.
Australopithecus sediba
First discovered in August of 2008 by Lee Berger’s 9-year-old son Matthew at Malapa cave, near Muldersdrift, South Africa. Sediba has been dated at roughly 1.98 million years old. That puts it in the early Pleistocene.
What I find most interesting about the early Pleistocene dating is that we already know of at least two other hominids that (co)existed at that time: Paranthropus robustus and Homo ergaster. (The more we learn about primate evolution the less our family tree looks like a tree. “Family Bush” anyone?)
Homo naledi
First discovered in September of 2013 by spelunkers Steve Tucker and Richard Hunter at Rising Star cave, near Krugersdorp, South Africa. Naledi has been dated at approximately 300,000 years old. That puts it squarely in the middle Pleistocene (Chibanian age).
Naledi’s place in the genus ‘Homo’ is still, in 2021, rather tenuous. Although there are a plethora of characteristics that naledi shares with Homo, its small brain size lines up more closely with Australopithecus and its curved fingers suggest a lifestyle that was more arboreal than terrestrial.*
I like Lee Berger (does it show?). He certainly makes paleoanthropology more accessible and more interesting. If it’s dry, excruciatingly academic analysis you are after, I suggest skipping Almost Human and opting for Tim White’s The Human Bone Manual instead…
*I’ve always felt that taxonomic arguments involving fossils, specifically hominid specimens, are a little idiotic. Let’s face it, everything that has ever lived on this planet, including us, is “transitional.” What we find in the fossil record are merely snapshots of kinetic evolutionary time. Our need to bracket and classify everything into discernible groups hamstrings some individuals’ understanding of evolution. This is one reason why that weak-ass “missing link” argument keeps rearing its scientifically illiterate head (I’m looking straight at you, Evangelicals 🤨)
“It just shows that you can never stop looking. Just because something has been studied for years doesn't mean that it can't still tell us new things”
Berger might be the most controversial figure in a profession populated with highly controversial figures. On the one hand, some of his contemporaries consider him a selfish and egotistical showman. On the other hand, he has “open-accessed” his projects for participation and study by scientists and students from all over the world, something no other paleontologist has ever done. I would think, if one were truly selfish and egotistical, one would restrict access to one’s own discoveries, ensuring personal credit for all comparative analysis and authorship (or co-authorship) of all scientific papers. In other words, if someone were selfish and egotistical one would behave like those scientists who claim that Berger is selfish and egotistical.
Australopithecus sediba
First discovered in August of 2008 by Lee Berger’s 9-year-old son Matthew at Malapa cave, near Muldersdrift, South Africa. Sediba has been dated at roughly 1.98 million years old. That puts it in the early Pleistocene.
What I find most interesting about the early Pleistocene dating is that we already know of at least two other hominids that (co)existed at that time: Paranthropus robustus and Homo ergaster. (The more we learn about primate evolution the less our family tree looks like a tree. “Family Bush” anyone?)
Homo naledi
First discovered in September of 2013 by spelunkers Steve Tucker and Richard Hunter at Rising Star cave, near Krugersdorp, South Africa. Naledi has been dated at approximately 300,000 years old. That puts it squarely in the middle Pleistocene (Chibanian age).
Naledi’s place in the genus ‘Homo’ is still, in 2021, rather tenuous. Although there are a plethora of characteristics that naledi shares with Homo, its small brain size lines up more closely with Australopithecus and its curved fingers suggest a lifestyle that was more arboreal than terrestrial.*
I like Lee Berger (does it show?). He certainly makes paleoanthropology more accessible and more interesting. If it’s dry, excruciatingly academic analysis you are after, I suggest skipping Almost Human and opting for Tim White’s The Human Bone Manual instead…
*I’ve always felt that taxonomic arguments involving fossils, specifically hominid specimens, are a little idiotic. Let’s face it, everything that has ever lived on this planet, including us, is “transitional.” What we find in the fossil record are merely snapshots of kinetic evolutionary time. Our need to bracket and classify everything into discernible groups hamstrings some individuals’ understanding of evolution. This is one reason why that weak-ass “missing link” argument keeps rearing its scientifically illiterate head (I’m looking straight at you, Evangelicals 🤨)
December 28, 2020
I love this science/ history!
The Astonishing Tale of Homo Naledi and the Discovery That Changed Our Human Story
By: Lee Berger, John Hawks
Narrated by: Donald Corren
This book is really good explaining the various finds before his and the significance of them on science. The author started with his life and followed through to the find, the difficulty of getting the fossils out, but the thrill of finding a new hominid species. I think he talked a bit too much about himself in the beginning because I just wanted to hear about the finds.
I enjoyed it. Easy to understand and he brings his passion for his job through to the book!
The Astonishing Tale of Homo Naledi and the Discovery That Changed Our Human Story
By: Lee Berger, John Hawks
Narrated by: Donald Corren
This book is really good explaining the various finds before his and the significance of them on science. The author started with his life and followed through to the find, the difficulty of getting the fossils out, but the thrill of finding a new hominid species. I think he talked a bit too much about himself in the beginning because I just wanted to hear about the finds.
I enjoyed it. Easy to understand and he brings his passion for his job through to the book!
December 16, 2023
Published the summer after I earned my PhD, “Almost Human: The Astonishing Tale of Homo naledi and the Discovery That Changed Our Human Story” is a fascinating story. I remember vividly how Berger’s discovery led to a Facebook announcement encouraging students to participate in his research while I was still a graduate student and how much I admired him for it.
Written by Lee Berger and John Hawks, this book tells the story of Berger’s discovery of two different (and new) species: Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi. The story begins in 2008 with the discovery of A. sediba by Berger’s son, Matt, in 2008. The story then takes a turn and discusses Berger’s childhood and early adulthood.
As I read this book, I felt an immediate connection to Berger because our life experiences are so similar. Like myself, Berger started out as an undergraduate in a different field (it’s the electives that always gets us!). Berger was originally in the ROTC, while for me, it was German language education. It’s not unusual for undergraduates to change majors. But for some reason, anthropologists seem to do it a lot more!
Berger talks at length about the ‘publish or peril’ problem and ego in the subfield. When I was an undergraduate and thinking about entering into paleoanthropology as a subfield, I was actually warned against it by an undergraduate professor who decried the enormous egos. But Berger doesn’t fall into that trap. In fact, he constantly references his family throughout the book. And, equally important, he has a history of opening up research opportunities, particularly for junior scholars.
Few people realize just how much ego is a part of academic scholarship. I think that this is due, in large part, to the trauma of academic life: the ‘publish or perish’ mantra that Berger discusses controls scholars’ whole world which can quickly end up consuming people; the workaholism; the need to be the best that negatively affects our self-esteem and our relationships with others, including colleagues and can (and often does) morph into gross self-absorption; and etc. All of this leads into ego when our personal self merges with the field. Instead of anthropology (which includes the subfields of archaeology and paleoarchaeology) being just a job, it becomes a ME field. In fact, it’s quite similar to some writers who can’t handle critiques because they’ve “become” their writing—that a criticism of their writing implies criticism of them as human beings. When this happens, a critique—ANY critique—is equated as a personal attack. Hyper-focusing on anything can lead to this, but when your entire professional career hinges on that one great discovery (or one great masterpiece if your’e an author), one small comment can result in a bloodbath at the worst, or, if you’re lucky, just a nasty cat fight.
Another connection that I share deeply with the author is his focus on open access. In this book, he talks a lot about how he submitted both research papers and 3D imagery to be used freely by the public. When I was a graduate student, the open access movement was just beginning to blossom. And like Berger, I also participated in this movement.
This book isn’t an academic work, and the authors go out of their way to use plain language when describing terms and concepts that are “jargon” in anthropology (you don’t need a PhD to understand what he’s saying!) You also won’t see numerous footnotes/endnotes littered throughout the book in order to make this monograph more digestible to the general public.
You can really see Berger’s thought process as he and his team tried to classify this new species. Classifying (or declassifying in some cases) is never easy. This process can be seen in all sciences, and classification itself can be pretty traumatic not just for the scientists but for the general public as well (e.g., remember Pluto?). But Berger did this with the help of numerous colleagues and junior colleagues, providing an excellent example for other professionals to follow.
Berger’s “Team Spirit” is on full display everywhere. At the end of the book, he included a list of all project participants from 2008 through 2015. He really is a phenomenal person because it is unusual for any anthropologist—and especially a paleoanthropologist—to open the doors to a discovery.
The authors did a fantastic job by incorporating both beautiful pencil drawn images of hominids and color photographs, along with a map of the site. Homo naledi is a fascinating hominin, living just 450,000 to 250,000 thousand years ago, and Berger’s discovery is helping to rewrite the history of humankind. I absolutely recommend this book to everyone.
Written by Lee Berger and John Hawks, this book tells the story of Berger’s discovery of two different (and new) species: Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi. The story begins in 2008 with the discovery of A. sediba by Berger’s son, Matt, in 2008. The story then takes a turn and discusses Berger’s childhood and early adulthood.
As I read this book, I felt an immediate connection to Berger because our life experiences are so similar. Like myself, Berger started out as an undergraduate in a different field (it’s the electives that always gets us!). Berger was originally in the ROTC, while for me, it was German language education. It’s not unusual for undergraduates to change majors. But for some reason, anthropologists seem to do it a lot more!
Berger talks at length about the ‘publish or peril’ problem and ego in the subfield. When I was an undergraduate and thinking about entering into paleoanthropology as a subfield, I was actually warned against it by an undergraduate professor who decried the enormous egos. But Berger doesn’t fall into that trap. In fact, he constantly references his family throughout the book. And, equally important, he has a history of opening up research opportunities, particularly for junior scholars.
Few people realize just how much ego is a part of academic scholarship. I think that this is due, in large part, to the trauma of academic life: the ‘publish or perish’ mantra that Berger discusses controls scholars’ whole world which can quickly end up consuming people; the workaholism; the need to be the best that negatively affects our self-esteem and our relationships with others, including colleagues and can (and often does) morph into gross self-absorption; and etc. All of this leads into ego when our personal self merges with the field. Instead of anthropology (which includes the subfields of archaeology and paleoarchaeology) being just a job, it becomes a ME field. In fact, it’s quite similar to some writers who can’t handle critiques because they’ve “become” their writing—that a criticism of their writing implies criticism of them as human beings. When this happens, a critique—ANY critique—is equated as a personal attack. Hyper-focusing on anything can lead to this, but when your entire professional career hinges on that one great discovery (or one great masterpiece if your’e an author), one small comment can result in a bloodbath at the worst, or, if you’re lucky, just a nasty cat fight.
Another connection that I share deeply with the author is his focus on open access. In this book, he talks a lot about how he submitted both research papers and 3D imagery to be used freely by the public. When I was a graduate student, the open access movement was just beginning to blossom. And like Berger, I also participated in this movement.
This book isn’t an academic work, and the authors go out of their way to use plain language when describing terms and concepts that are “jargon” in anthropology (you don’t need a PhD to understand what he’s saying!) You also won’t see numerous footnotes/endnotes littered throughout the book in order to make this monograph more digestible to the general public.
You can really see Berger’s thought process as he and his team tried to classify this new species. Classifying (or declassifying in some cases) is never easy. This process can be seen in all sciences, and classification itself can be pretty traumatic not just for the scientists but for the general public as well (e.g., remember Pluto?). But Berger did this with the help of numerous colleagues and junior colleagues, providing an excellent example for other professionals to follow.
Berger’s “Team Spirit” is on full display everywhere. At the end of the book, he included a list of all project participants from 2008 through 2015. He really is a phenomenal person because it is unusual for any anthropologist—and especially a paleoanthropologist—to open the doors to a discovery.
The authors did a fantastic job by incorporating both beautiful pencil drawn images of hominids and color photographs, along with a map of the site. Homo naledi is a fascinating hominin, living just 450,000 to 250,000 thousand years ago, and Berger’s discovery is helping to rewrite the history of humankind. I absolutely recommend this book to everyone.
March 13, 2018
Ok if you guys don’t know I am an anthropology major so books like this really speak to me , a couple of years ago the paleo anthropology world was rocked when the discovery of Homo naledi was made public , here was a whole different kind of Homo who up to now had not been discovered, you can imagine the controversy this find brought forward, we might need to add another branch to the human tree in its evolution towards Homo sapiens . This is the book about that find from the guy who discovered it , the book had some structural issues as talking about a whole completely different find other than the one the book was supposed to be about , but looking back it was just to give it some background, anyway the book picks up from there and I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest on anthropology.
May 26, 2017
Loved this account of the past 20 years of our fossil discovery and understanding of human evolution, culminating with Rising Star, an archeological dig that captured my attention as a PBS/Nova TV presentation when it debuted. I watched in awe, at the time, as a team of women scientists documented and uncovered the bones of Homo Naledi. This book gives greater detail to this exciting time, and the forefront it heralded -- in fossil finds, personal evolution, and the way that the Internet, social media, and a collaborative mindset changed how archeology is done.
January 4, 2024
Almost Human is an exciting description of the finding of a large number of prehistoric hominid bones (that would eventually be a new species called Homo naledi) in a cave system near Sterkfontein caves, in a region thought to have been thoroughly searched for fossil hominids.
This book starts off with a nicely written, if somewhat simplistic, introduction to the history of the discovery of hominid fossils, along with a mini-biography of a younger Lee Berger that reads rather like a job interview. The interesting and exciting parts occur when Lee Berger describes his newer (and less well-known) fossil finds (Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi) and their implications in terms of human evolution. What I also found interesting is Berger's encouragement of collaborative and open access to fossil finds and research results that was hitherto almost a subject of taboo in human evolutionary paleoanthropological circles. Almost Human is a well written book that makes a fascinating discovery and it's implications accessible to the general public. Now, I just have to find a similar book on Homo floresiensis...
NOTE: I would consider Almost Human a companion book to Berger's following book Cave of Bones, which discusses the same discoveries, just with a different emphasis and some additional Homo naledi discoveries and implications.
This book starts off with a nicely written, if somewhat simplistic, introduction to the history of the discovery of hominid fossils, along with a mini-biography of a younger Lee Berger that reads rather like a job interview. The interesting and exciting parts occur when Lee Berger describes his newer (and less well-known) fossil finds (Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi) and their implications in terms of human evolution. What I also found interesting is Berger's encouragement of collaborative and open access to fossil finds and research results that was hitherto almost a subject of taboo in human evolutionary paleoanthropological circles. Almost Human is a well written book that makes a fascinating discovery and it's implications accessible to the general public. Now, I just have to find a similar book on Homo floresiensis...
NOTE: I would consider Almost Human a companion book to Berger's following book Cave of Bones, which discusses the same discoveries, just with a different emphasis and some additional Homo naledi discoveries and implications.
August 26, 2020
Кратка и прекрасна книжка от един симпатичен палеоантрополог.
Оставете настрана научната част за всеки отделен вид между маймуните и нас. С друго е ценна книжката. Носи емоцията от откривателството, от методичната научна работа в колектив. Авторът е отявлен привърженик на "отворен" тип наука, на използване на най-новите комуникационни канали и неортодоксални (поне за специфичната ниша в науката) методи за осъществяването ѝ. От това, че книгата започва с откитие благодарение на хипер новото по онова време google earth приложение, до публикуването на голям обем от данни за откритията онлайн, които ентусиастите после принтирали копия на фосилите на 3D принтери си.
За мен подходът му е пример как следва да се развива науката, с ангажиране на по-широк кръг от заинтересовани лица и начинаещи учени, които инак не биха имали шанс да работят с новооткрити хуманоидни фосили. Е, когато даваш ш��нс и шансът ти се усмихва обратно - човекът е имал голям късмет и с двете си описани в книгата находища. Късметът отива при смелите, обаче и при тези, които са готови да споедлят.
Много интересно ми беше описанието на самия процес на сформиране на екип и разработване на едно находище. Знания приложими и в други сфери на живота, и при други професии. Ами сформирането на един екип от 8 атлетични палеоантроположки :) всяка със специфични умения и знания! Индиана Джоунс може да му диша прахта само :)
Полезна и приятна за четене, без затормозяващи материали в нито един момент. Голямо откритие е за мен книгата и я препоръчвам широко. Разбира се, не очаквайте обема от информация за изразяване на всички аспекти от антроположкото ни минало. Просто една ��стория първа ръка по темата.
Оставете настрана научната част за всеки отделен вид между маймуните и нас. С друго е ценна книжката. Носи емоцията от откривателството, от методичната научна работа в колектив. Авторът е отявлен привърженик на "отворен" тип наука, на използване на най-новите комуникационни канали и неортодоксални (поне за специфичната ниша в науката) методи за осъществяването ѝ. От това, че книгата започва с откитие благодарение на хипер новото по онова време google earth приложение, до публикуването на голям обем от данни за откритията онлайн, които ентусиастите после принтирали копия на фосилите на 3D принтери си.
За мен подходът му е пример как следва да се развива науката, с ангажиране на по-широк кръг от заинтересовани лица и начинаещи учени, които инак не биха имали шанс да работят с новооткрити хуманоидни фосили. Е, когато даваш ш��нс и шансът ти се усмихва обратно - човекът е имал голям късмет и с двете си описани в книгата находища. Късметът отива при смелите, обаче и при тези, които са готови да споедлят.
Много интересно ми беше описанието на самия процес на сформиране на екип и разработване на едно находище. Знания приложими и в други сфери на живота, и при други професии. Ами сформирането на един екип от 8 атлетични палеоантроположки :) всяка със специфични умения и знания! Индиана Джоунс може да му диша прахта само :)
Полезна и приятна за четене, без затормозяващи материали в нито един момент. Голямо откритие е за мен книгата и я препоръчвам широко. Разбира се, не очаквайте обема от информация за изразяване на всички аспекти от антроположкото ни минало. Просто една ��стория първа ръка по темата.
June 16, 2017
Well-written, nicely paced, examination of the discoveries of Australopithecus Sediba and Homo Naledi by teams led by Lee Berger. Of special interest is the Berger's commitment to open source research and providing opportunities to young scientists.
September 24, 2020
I am a retired biological anthropologist and still love to keep up with the field. Most of my time is spent reading professional, refereed journal articles, but occasionally also read the popular literature. As such, I ran into Berger’s book and decided to read it. It is a popular book meant for the interested lawman and readable by anyone who has a slight background or passing interest in human origins, from junior high school through to early senility.
Berger and Hawks describe the discovery and excavation of two new fossil species in Southern Africa near the locations of other important finds made many years ago. It is an immensely personal account of how his 9-year-old son, Matthew, discovered the first bones of 1.98 million-year-old Australopithecus sediba and other associates discovered bones of another, more recent (~300,000 BP), species – Homo naledi.
Berger & Hawks describe in detail the process of discovery, extraction, preparation, analysis of the fossils, and eventual publication of the results; much of the book reads like an adventure book which glamorizes some parts of the process while not placing enough emphasis of the grindingly boring part of this long journey, except you will get great exercise while “looking” for the fossils. It does place emphasis on the detailed nature of how a site is meticulously prepared for days to months and only then excavated. Still, from my own experience, when some thing or some truth has been “discovered” it is hard to describe the feeling of euphoria and awe and humility in the same instant that the discovery engenders. I have discovered “things” (oldest pyramids in the Teotihuacán Valley) and “truths” (a variety of relationships in human biology and culture) and the thrill never gets old, but they all took an enormous amount of work and thought.
For many years I taught a course called “The Human Discovery” in which students read a series of books dealing with discoveries, usually written by the actual people making the discoveries.
Some of the subjects covered and books included:
Personal Discoveries
Loren Eiseley – The Immense Journey
Discovering Deep Ancestors:
Donald C. Johanson & M A Edey – Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind
Or
Richard Leakey – The Origins of Humankind
Discovering Others:
Theodora Kroeber – Ishi in Two Worlds, or Ishi, Last of His Tribe
Discovering Spirituality (Lakota 7 Sacred Ceremonies & 7 Christian Sacraments):
Joseph Epes Brown & Black Elk – The Sacred Pipe
Discovering Languages:
John Chadwick – The Decipherment of Linear B
Discovering our Genes:
James B, Watson: The Double Helix
Discovering a Future?:
Michael Crichton: The Andromeda Strain
The Berger/Hawks book would have fitted in very nicely with this list. I enjoyed the book and suggest it for all who are interested in how scientific expeditions work today and those interested in the exciting story of our deep, evolutionary history.
Berger and Hawks describe the discovery and excavation of two new fossil species in Southern Africa near the locations of other important finds made many years ago. It is an immensely personal account of how his 9-year-old son, Matthew, discovered the first bones of 1.98 million-year-old Australopithecus sediba and other associates discovered bones of another, more recent (~300,000 BP), species – Homo naledi.
Berger & Hawks describe in detail the process of discovery, extraction, preparation, analysis of the fossils, and eventual publication of the results; much of the book reads like an adventure book which glamorizes some parts of the process while not placing enough emphasis of the grindingly boring part of this long journey, except you will get great exercise while “looking” for the fossils. It does place emphasis on the detailed nature of how a site is meticulously prepared for days to months and only then excavated. Still, from my own experience, when some thing or some truth has been “discovered” it is hard to describe the feeling of euphoria and awe and humility in the same instant that the discovery engenders. I have discovered “things” (oldest pyramids in the Teotihuacán Valley) and “truths” (a variety of relationships in human biology and culture) and the thrill never gets old, but they all took an enormous amount of work and thought.
For many years I taught a course called “The Human Discovery” in which students read a series of books dealing with discoveries, usually written by the actual people making the discoveries.
Some of the subjects covered and books included:
Personal Discoveries
Loren Eiseley – The Immense Journey
Discovering Deep Ancestors:
Donald C. Johanson & M A Edey – Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind
Or
Richard Leakey – The Origins of Humankind
Discovering Others:
Theodora Kroeber – Ishi in Two Worlds, or Ishi, Last of His Tribe
Discovering Spirituality (Lakota 7 Sacred Ceremonies & 7 Christian Sacraments):
Joseph Epes Brown & Black Elk – The Sacred Pipe
Discovering Languages:
John Chadwick – The Decipherment of Linear B
Discovering our Genes:
James B, Watson: The Double Helix
Discovering a Future?:
Michael Crichton: The Andromeda Strain
The Berger/Hawks book would have fitted in very nicely with this list. I enjoyed the book and suggest it for all who are interested in how scientific expeditions work today and those interested in the exciting story of our deep, evolutionary history.
July 7, 2018
Far from astonishing, it is the story of a bureaucrat feeling self important. The bio wastes time on unimportant details - the cap some guy was wearing or how someone does not wear shoes. And the paper pusher does not waste any opportunity to inflate minor facts, a life long skill that probably lead him to quite a few grants.
June 8, 2017
This is pretty interesting, though it does get bogged down occasionally. And there are definitely sections where there is a lot of bragging ("And then I transformed the entire field of archaeology, me me ME"), which.... I dunno, whatever. But the fossil stuff, and the excavation stuff was pretty cool - especially in light of the fact that in today's news they were talking about still other hominid fossils from still other parts of Africa (specifically, Morocco), which fact muddies the waters even further than this book does...... Just another fascinating puzzle piece.
August 11, 2017
Lee Berger's recounting of his recent discovery of two new hominin species in South African is enthralling and seems well-balanced from a scientific perspective. The first few chapters give an overview of older finds in Africa and he updates the classic "human family tree" based on newer discoveries. He is a strong advocate for the new open approach to the handling of fossils and data and has shown the value of involving people from many disciplines in evaluating finds. John Hawks from the University of Wisconsin in Madison was also part of this effort.
July 23, 2017
Insightful, light, and fun read. I was surprised by how accessible it was. If you want a quick read about fossils and where we are at in understanding human ancestry, I highly recommend.
December 21, 2021
Fascinating account of the discovery of a lifetime; however he does go on a bit, especially noticeable in the audio book format.
Needs a good editor, but recommended to all.
Needs a good editor, but recommended to all.
August 18, 2023
2023-08-18:
Amazing discovery and as if written for me.
Amazing discovery and as if written for me.
March 5, 2022
This book could have been condensed to a good, long reader's digest article. There's too much fluff at the beginning about the author's personal academic achievements, with no real story to be told.
The process of the discovery was interesting. It would be a good book for people who are interested in Paleoanthropology (or maybe archeology) as a career. My personal takeaway? Don't do it unless you have a trust fund that can support your hobby-turned career in research. I may be biased, but it was a little irksome that the author did not pay those people who sorta risked their lives to go down into the caves to retrieve the specimen. The author was pretty proud of the fact he was able to leverage Facebook to advertise these volunteer positions, and was able to assemble and coordinate an efficient and wonderful team of mostly women on the fly.
I may sound a little bitter. During university, I volunteered extensively under a profession for research. I've never learned anything other than I really hated research. I wish I used my time to do something else. The expectancy of doing free work just so you can get some reputation under a professor is a pretty obnoxious problem in academia.
The good part of the book is the retrieval of the specimen. I would have loved to hear the description from one of the people who actually went down the caves. The planning and coordination were valuable. It's interesting to know the procedures and safety measures in place or an operation like this one.
The best part of the book is the research conclusions, and the musing of the author based on his scientific experience. It is rather short though, so a better format would be an article in a scientific magazine.
The process of the discovery was interesting. It would be a good book for people who are interested in Paleoanthropology (or maybe archeology) as a career. My personal takeaway? Don't do it unless you have a trust fund that can support your hobby-turned career in research. I may be biased, but it was a little irksome that the author did not pay those people who sorta risked their lives to go down into the caves to retrieve the specimen. The author was pretty proud of the fact he was able to leverage Facebook to advertise these volunteer positions, and was able to assemble and coordinate an efficient and wonderful team of mostly women on the fly.
I may sound a little bitter. During university, I volunteered extensively under a profession for research. I've never learned anything other than I really hated research. I wish I used my time to do something else. The expectancy of doing free work just so you can get some reputation under a professor is a pretty obnoxious problem in academia.
The good part of the book is the retrieval of the specimen. I would have loved to hear the description from one of the people who actually went down the caves. The planning and coordination were valuable. It's interesting to know the procedures and safety measures in place or an operation like this one.
The best part of the book is the research conclusions, and the musing of the author based on his scientific experience. It is rather short though, so a better format would be an article in a scientific magazine.
September 16, 2020
A fascinating story of discovery and shines a light on the seemingly obscure world of academic rivalry, ambition and a thirst to learn more. A throughly good read.
November 14, 2023
Skip straight to part 3 where the whole discussion of the Naledi begins.
In my opinion, if this is true, then it really is a game changer: maybe ideology precedes homo sapiens sapiens.
In my opinion, if this is true, then it really is a game changer: maybe ideology precedes homo sapiens sapiens.
December 4, 2023
I love these first person accounts of scientific discoveries. Well written and an absolutely incredible find.
July 11, 2019
You might also enjoy:
✱ The Old Way: A Story of the First People
✱ Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins
✱ Olduvai Gorge: My Search for Early Man
✱ Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human
✱ Lucy: the beginnings of humankind
✱ From Lucy to Language
✱ Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes
✱ House of Rain
✱ In Search of the Old Ones
✱ The Lost World of the Old Ones
✱ Horizon
✱ Lab Girl (different field, but highly recommended)
✱ The Old Way: A Story of the First People
✱ Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins
✱ Olduvai Gorge: My Search for Early Man
✱ Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human
✱ Lucy: the beginnings of humankind
✱ From Lucy to Language
✱ Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes
✱ House of Rain
✱ In Search of the Old Ones
✱ The Lost World of the Old Ones
✱ Horizon
✱ Lab Girl (different field, but highly recommended)
February 21, 2023
I feel silly admitting my ignorance, but before reading Almost Human I never knew (or even contemplated) just how many other extinct species there were on the homo sapien family tree. Neanderthals? Yeah, heard of those. But all the other species that bridged apes and humans (collectively called hominids)? I didn’t realize just how many there were...
Lee Berger, a paleoanthropologist based out of South Africa, has been lucky enough to discover not one, but two(!) of these extinct hominoid species, and Almost Human is part professional memoir, part account of these discoveries. The second discovery - that of Homo naledi - is by far the more interesting of the two, and I definitely enjoyed these sections the most.
There are a few things that stood out to me about Almost Human. Firstly, this is a book where the content makes the reading experience. While the writing is acceptable, at times it got bogged down in minor details and could lean repetitive. My interest in finishing was because I wanted to learn more about the fossils, not because I loved Berger’s descriptions.
Secondly, Berger is, as my grandfather would say, “a character”. He definitely doesn’t shy away from talking about disagreements within his field, and I’d love to hear what his academic colleagues think of him. While I found his commitment to open source research and career development of younger scientists really cool, there were parts of the book that felt very self-important. For example, when talking about the exploration of the Rising Star Cave system, Berger spent multiple chapters talking about his safety protocols. I think this part of the book would have been more interesting from the actual POV of the cavers, navigating dark, twisting tunnels for the first time. For this reason, I think this would have been a 5-star read if somebody other than Berger had written it, and provided a balanced and diverse POV from all parties involved (and maybe even the academic groups that disagree with Berger).
All this being said, the story of the Homo naledi discovery was fascinating, especially the cave system and fossil analysis. Most importantly, this book has inspired me to learn more about ancient hominids and I’m eagerly awaiting a few more books from the library!
Shout out to Erica’s Youtube Channel “Passage of Time” for recommending Almost Human to me. Her Youtube channel is great!
Lee Berger, a paleoanthropologist based out of South Africa, has been lucky enough to discover not one, but two(!) of these extinct hominoid species, and Almost Human is part professional memoir, part account of these discoveries. The second discovery - that of Homo naledi - is by far the more interesting of the two, and I definitely enjoyed these sections the most.
There are a few things that stood out to me about Almost Human. Firstly, this is a book where the content makes the reading experience. While the writing is acceptable, at times it got bogged down in minor details and could lean repetitive. My interest in finishing was because I wanted to learn more about the fossils, not because I loved Berger’s descriptions.
Secondly, Berger is, as my grandfather would say, “a character”. He definitely doesn’t shy away from talking about disagreements within his field, and I’d love to hear what his academic colleagues think of him. While I found his commitment to open source research and career development of younger scientists really cool, there were parts of the book that felt very self-important. For example, when talking about the exploration of the Rising Star Cave system, Berger spent multiple chapters talking about his safety protocols. I think this part of the book would have been more interesting from the actual POV of the cavers, navigating dark, twisting tunnels for the first time. For this reason, I think this would have been a 5-star read if somebody other than Berger had written it, and provided a balanced and diverse POV from all parties involved (and maybe even the academic groups that disagree with Berger).
All this being said, the story of the Homo naledi discovery was fascinating, especially the cave system and fossil analysis. Most importantly, this book has inspired me to learn more about ancient hominids and I’m eagerly awaiting a few more books from the library!
Shout out to Erica’s Youtube Channel “Passage of Time” for recommending Almost Human to me. Her Youtube channel is great!
August 14, 2020
This is an amazing book, about the story of the discoveries of Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi. It was my favorite book of 2019, and I've gone back to it twice since when I was sad to get a pick-me-up. If you are into the discovery and excitement of science, this book is for you. If you're not into science, but you want a good and interesting and hopeful read, this very well may be for you and you should try it.
Dr. Berger is an easygoing writer, and that seems to be his personality real life. He opens the book with his son's discovery of a A. sediba skull, the first ever found, and how they went about exploring the fossils in that location. It's fascinating to see how a field office works doing this kind of critical, sensitive, and staggeringly fragile excavation. And as interesting as this part is, it sets the stage for the discovery of H. naledi.
To find other members of the hominin groups is rare. To find our genus-mates is even more mind-blowing. I won't spoil this because the story of going from a photo of a skull to an excavation in a very uncomfortable location is so worth the read. It's entertaining and made more so by Berger's wry humor. My favorite part involves a lunchbox.
It doesn't stop there, but goes into the processing and reconstruction of the fossil human cousin. This part of the scientific process is usually behind the scenes, but Berger lays it bare. He is polite when he lays out some politics (which we all know much be happening, because people, but it's good to read), he explains his beliefs that underlie the reasons he takes certain actions, and he takes his lumps where he earns them.
And it ends with...
...but that would be telling, wouldn't it?
Five stars, and it really earned that.
Dr. Berger is an easygoing writer, and that seems to be his personality real life. He opens the book with his son's discovery of a A. sediba skull, the first ever found, and how they went about exploring the fossils in that location. It's fascinating to see how a field office works doing this kind of critical, sensitive, and staggeringly fragile excavation. And as interesting as this part is, it sets the stage for the discovery of H. naledi.
To find other members of the hominin groups is rare. To find our genus-mates is even more mind-blowing. I won't spoil this because the story of going from a photo of a skull to an excavation in a very uncomfortable location is so worth the read. It's entertaining and made more so by Berger's wry humor. My favorite part involves a lunchbox.
It doesn't stop there, but goes into the processing and reconstruction of the fossil human cousin. This part of the scientific process is usually behind the scenes, but Berger lays it bare. He is polite when he lays out some politics (which we all know much be happening, because people, but it's good to read), he explains his beliefs that underlie the reasons he takes certain actions, and he takes his lumps where he earns them.
And it ends with...
...but that would be telling, wouldn't it?
Five stars, and it really earned that.
April 30, 2022
Look, life is full of coincidences, if you don’t realize that you are at risk of believing that every time you think of a friend or family member and they call you on the phone that you may be some sort of psychic.
I get it, I really do. I remember hearing a song on the radio when I was a teenager, ironically, a song that every pop station in the area was playing at least once per hour, and being sure it was the cosmos reaching out through the ether to give me a message.*
Well, I suspect that’s not how it works, or if it does work that way, the universe is stupid, as it should be about reducing suffering in general and preventing the pain and suffering of innocents in particular, not giving me a vague sensation of wellness when I think about my family and then they call me shortly thereafter.
And I wasn’t going to do this, but for whatever reason it popped in my head so instead of reviewing I’ll tell this quick, and absolutely true** story.
At my last job in the states, I worked with a Russian immigrant, she was being hired in the weeks prior to my time there ending. She was religious, extremely religious. I get being fervent, I really do. I was once a fundamentalist Christian myself, and bought in, hook, line, and sinker, to some of the more uncomfortable conclusions one comes to when refusing to soften on some spiritual conclusions you can get when taking a 2-3 thousand year old book as a guide to modern life.
But she was using the fact of her immigration to the U.S. as proof of His divine intervention on her behalf to get her from her home in Russia to the States.
“What part of you coming here relies on a miracle?” I asked.
“Uh, Russians don’t get to immigrate to the U.S.,” she said.
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“It is.”
“So, God moved the hearts and minds of bureaucrats to approve your visa to that U.S., despite the fact that you are young, have a masters degree in physics, and had family/sponsors here willing to take you in, and that’s your full blown miracle?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know that something like 9-10 million children under the age of 4 die every year?*** Many of them dying alone, it great pain, and after untold suffering? Many of them from Christian families, who would have prayed fervently for their recovery.”
“No, they weren’t Christians?”
“What?”
“Real Christians wouldn’t suffer like that. They weren’t really believers.”
“Do you mean the children, or their parents? Because either answer still means the innocent child is suffering.”
At this point she sort of shrugged her shoulders as if to imply that I just don’t
get it. She went on to explain, for the rest of the conversation, that God takes care of his own, and people that suffer, have car wrecks, get cancer, etc, just aren’t real Christians. To this day it’s the most baffling conversation about faith I’ve ever had. I told her that if her worldview was true, then her God was a monster, but that that point, we were seconds from descending into name-calling anyway.
And again, that might seem like a fake conversation used as a rhetorical device by me, but it’s not. I swear that it was real. And I’m still shaken by it now, half a decade later.
And so, what got me thinking about all this was that I’d just watched a documentary about the kid’s soccer team in Thailand that got trapped in that cave a few years ago as it flooded. I’m not sure if anyone remembers, but it was all over the news at the time, and against all odds, they were rescued. People died trying to reach them, and some of the foreign rescuers faced potential prison time if they didn’t succeed in their rescue attempt.+
That documentary was pretty good, and it showed what a hell scape caving can be. Then I read this book, about what I thought was an unrelated topic, and found it was more about the unmitigated terror that spelunking is.
It’s almost as if the universe is trying to tell me something!
Whatever, this book was good, I thought. Not my favorite, but for my sake, it was worth the read. It was about the discovery of a significant find of not-quite-human remains from some of our ancient cousins and the efforts put forward to recover them.
*The message, if it were taken from the lyrics of the song, is that I have a disease, which is being in love, and the cure, which is also being in love, will kill me, but without said cure, I will also die. Honestly, it’s hard to see why, of all the things the cosmic powers could share with me, that it would be that. But, I can’t think of any non-supernatural explanation why a song that I wanted hear and was insanely popular at the time and was in heavy rotation on every radio station that I listen to, would play precisely at the time when I was switching stations to hear a song that I liked after barely half an hour of listening to the radio. Yeah, psychic phenomena.
** I when I throw in an adverb right before something like that, I’m usually being sarcastic, and am about to tell you something, if if true, is at least hyperbolic. This time I’m not, that story is true.
***That number, per the WHO, has been steadily trending downward since 1990, when 12.6 Million children under 5 that died, in 2020, the number was around 5 million.
+I’m a little unsure of the actual risk for the rescuers in a failed attempt, but in what appeared to be a case of horribly misaligned incentives, if they did nothing, and all the children died, then no one was to blame. That 100% of those kids would die if nothing was done was irrelevant. But someone actually attempting a rescue, and even if they saved 10 of the 11children, would make the rescuer criminally liable for that death. Maybe. It was a line from the documentary that was said and brushed off. I’m not really sure how liable they really would have been if there’d been an accident.
I get it, I really do. I remember hearing a song on the radio when I was a teenager, ironically, a song that every pop station in the area was playing at least once per hour, and being sure it was the cosmos reaching out through the ether to give me a message.*
Well, I suspect that’s not how it works, or if it does work that way, the universe is stupid, as it should be about reducing suffering in general and preventing the pain and suffering of innocents in particular, not giving me a vague sensation of wellness when I think about my family and then they call me shortly thereafter.
And I wasn’t going to do this, but for whatever reason it popped in my head so instead of reviewing I’ll tell this quick, and absolutely true** story.
At my last job in the states, I worked with a Russian immigrant, she was being hired in the weeks prior to my time there ending. She was religious, extremely religious. I get being fervent, I really do. I was once a fundamentalist Christian myself, and bought in, hook, line, and sinker, to some of the more uncomfortable conclusions one comes to when refusing to soften on some spiritual conclusions you can get when taking a 2-3 thousand year old book as a guide to modern life.
But she was using the fact of her immigration to the U.S. as proof of His divine intervention on her behalf to get her from her home in Russia to the States.
“What part of you coming here relies on a miracle?” I asked.
“Uh, Russians don’t get to immigrate to the U.S.,” she said.
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“It is.”
“So, God moved the hearts and minds of bureaucrats to approve your visa to that U.S., despite the fact that you are young, have a masters degree in physics, and had family/sponsors here willing to take you in, and that’s your full blown miracle?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know that something like 9-10 million children under the age of 4 die every year?*** Many of them dying alone, it great pain, and after untold suffering? Many of them from Christian families, who would have prayed fervently for their recovery.”
“No, they weren’t Christians?”
“What?”
“Real Christians wouldn’t suffer like that. They weren’t really believers.”
“Do you mean the children, or their parents? Because either answer still means the innocent child is suffering.”
At this point she sort of shrugged her shoulders as if to imply that I just don’t
get it. She went on to explain, for the rest of the conversation, that God takes care of his own, and people that suffer, have car wrecks, get cancer, etc, just aren’t real Christians. To this day it’s the most baffling conversation about faith I’ve ever had. I told her that if her worldview was true, then her God was a monster, but that that point, we were seconds from descending into name-calling anyway.
And again, that might seem like a fake conversation used as a rhetorical device by me, but it’s not. I swear that it was real. And I’m still shaken by it now, half a decade later.
And so, what got me thinking about all this was that I’d just watched a documentary about the kid’s soccer team in Thailand that got trapped in that cave a few years ago as it flooded. I’m not sure if anyone remembers, but it was all over the news at the time, and against all odds, they were rescued. People died trying to reach them, and some of the foreign rescuers faced potential prison time if they didn’t succeed in their rescue attempt.+
That documentary was pretty good, and it showed what a hell scape caving can be. Then I read this book, about what I thought was an unrelated topic, and found it was more about the unmitigated terror that spelunking is.
It’s almost as if the universe is trying to tell me something!
Whatever, this book was good, I thought. Not my favorite, but for my sake, it was worth the read. It was about the discovery of a significant find of not-quite-human remains from some of our ancient cousins and the efforts put forward to recover them.
*The message, if it were taken from the lyrics of the song, is that I have a disease, which is being in love, and the cure, which is also being in love, will kill me, but without said cure, I will also die. Honestly, it’s hard to see why, of all the things the cosmic powers could share with me, that it would be that. But, I can’t think of any non-supernatural explanation why a song that I wanted hear and was insanely popular at the time and was in heavy rotation on every radio station that I listen to, would play precisely at the time when I was switching stations to hear a song that I liked after barely half an hour of listening to the radio. Yeah, psychic phenomena.
** I when I throw in an adverb right before something like that, I’m usually being sarcastic, and am about to tell you something, if if true, is at least hyperbolic. This time I’m not, that story is true.
***That number, per the WHO, has been steadily trending downward since 1990, when 12.6 Million children under 5 that died, in 2020, the number was around 5 million.
+I’m a little unsure of the actual risk for the rescuers in a failed attempt, but in what appeared to be a case of horribly misaligned incentives, if they did nothing, and all the children died, then no one was to blame. That 100% of those kids would die if nothing was done was irrelevant. But someone actually attempting a rescue, and even if they saved 10 of the 11children, would make the rescuer criminally liable for that death. Maybe. It was a line from the documentary that was said and brushed off. I’m not really sure how liable they really would have been if there’d been an accident.
April 14, 2019
As a layperson with a side interest in biological anthropology, I found this book really interesting. I totally dorked out over a National Geographic story about the homo naledi and was excited to read the whole story of the discovery. It didn’t disappoint. Crazy story and fascinating discovery with far-reaching implications for the story of human evolution. And still tons of unanswered questions. How did those bones get in the cave???? Will we ever know???
November 9, 2018
Reviewed for The Bibliophibian.
Way back possibly even before I was doing my biology degree, I was doing all the MOOCs (massively open online courses) I could, and one of them was run by John Hawks. So when I stumbled across this book I had to have it. I’ve always been vaguely aware of and interested in what’s understood about hominin evolution, but I mostly knew about the big classic hits like Lucy. Homo naledi, discussed in this book, is new and rather surprising.
The story of excavating the remains is also pretty fascinating, with a team of female scientists picked for their ability to wriggle into the cave systems to retrieve the items, and all the science and planning that went into understanding what was happening. The book does also include some info on Berger’s career in general, which is less interesting to me, but his excavations of hominin remains… it’s all astounding and exciting to me.
Knowing that Berger’s work can be controversial, I’d love to read some other takes on the same info. I might even dig into the journals while I still have access, before my degree’s done. Either way, it’s fascinating stuff, though.
Way back possibly even before I was doing my biology degree, I was doing all the MOOCs (massively open online courses) I could, and one of them was run by John Hawks. So when I stumbled across this book I had to have it. I’ve always been vaguely aware of and interested in what’s understood about hominin evolution, but I mostly knew about the big classic hits like Lucy. Homo naledi, discussed in this book, is new and rather surprising.
The story of excavating the remains is also pretty fascinating, with a team of female scientists picked for their ability to wriggle into the cave systems to retrieve the items, and all the science and planning that went into understanding what was happening. The book does also include some info on Berger’s career in general, which is less interesting to me, but his excavations of hominin remains… it’s all astounding and exciting to me.
Knowing that Berger’s work can be controversial, I’d love to read some other takes on the same info. I might even dig into the journals while I still have access, before my degree’s done. Either way, it’s fascinating stuff, though.
July 11, 2022
Discovered this after listening to a podcast episode on the mystery of how Homo Naledi ended up in the cave systems it was uncovered in in the first place, and finding it interesting.
Although it’s said to be about the aforementioned species, only about half of this book covers that: in the first half Berger seems preoccupied with talking about his own achievements and his troubles with other scientists which, to me, read a lot like posturing, though talks about other finds are interesting.
Fortunately the last two sections are a very readable account of the discovery and recovery of the hominids found 30 meters underground in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa. It’s really fascinating and details not just what was found but also the intensive and dangerous process of what actually getting scientists down into the cave entailed, as well as the lab workshops that ran afterward to categorise what was found.
Although it’s said to be about the aforementioned species, only about half of this book covers that: in the first half Berger seems preoccupied with talking about his own achievements and his troubles with other scientists which, to me, read a lot like posturing, though talks about other finds are interesting.
Fortunately the last two sections are a very readable account of the discovery and recovery of the hominids found 30 meters underground in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa. It’s really fascinating and details not just what was found but also the intensive and dangerous process of what actually getting scientists down into the cave entailed, as well as the lab workshops that ran afterward to categorise what was found.
January 2, 2024
The first third to half of the book is more about general paleontology, the author and his fellow paleontologists. That said, author Lee Berger made this book accessible to those of us (non-experts) who are interested in his find. I have read other paleoanthropology books, but I enjoyed listening to this audiobook, which is superbly narrated by Donald Corren. I particularly enjoyed reading about the smaller women who aided the paleontologists by squeezing through very tight passages to get to the bones.
January 23, 2021
A really nice, and at times exciting, story of the discovery of pre-human fossils in South Africa. If you are at all interested in paleoanthropology, this will fit the bill.
August 25, 2021
this book was really interesting
August 10, 2022
This was an interesting story of how the Homo Naledi fossils were discovered.
I felt somewhat claustrophobic when imagining the cave system in Maropeng, SA.
Berger seems humbled by his luck in finding these fossils and gives credit were credit is due to the cave explorers and the all female science team he worked with.
I'm now fascinated with how Naledi ended up in the caves.
I felt somewhat claustrophobic when imagining the cave system in Maropeng, SA.
Berger seems humbled by his luck in finding these fossils and gives credit were credit is due to the cave explorers and the all female science team he worked with.
I'm now fascinated with how Naledi ended up in the caves.
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