Unknown: Cave of Bones

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These individuals assume the Homo Naledi made this ritualistic climb in a cave to bury their dead. You're not geologists you're archeologists. The whole cave structure could have been different 250,000 years ago. They could have just walked in and walked out, yet you assume way too much with no solid proof. You want to spin a narrative to fit your story. You're scientists get data before you reach a conclusion. Early on you admitted the entrance of the cave collapsed, yet you have no geologists on your team to give you data for your hypotheses. Please look at all possibilities before televising documentaries that are purely speculative.

I have over 25 years as an amateur paleontologist working with doctoral paleontologist. I have discovered new dinosaur species over 120 million years old and have published my findings. I know the similarities between archaeology and paleontology and also the differences. In this film I was disappointed with the lack of research discussion given these bones of possibly a new humanoid species. No credible research was discussed to support their assumptions for a new species or activities of the humanoids. Too much time was spent showing the archaeologists and workers climbing over rocks and squeezing through tight places. Those disappointments aside, I was quite shocked that the bones were not scanned to produce an assembled three dimensional skeletal image of the new find; a process that is now used particularly for new rare discoveries. More detail should have been given to support the assumption that there was just no other way into the cave. I wasn't convinced that these ancient beings would have been able to carry dead bodies in for burial through a very difficult passageway. I think Lee Berger should have been more convincing in his speculation about it being the only way in for the ancient beings. Maybe earth quakes over the thousands of years ago may have alter the passageway. Basically not enough research was presented to propose such an important discovery and name a new humanoid species.

This could have been awesome - the cave, the bones, the possibility of burials of a related species to Homo sapiens. But it was just all so flimsy and speculative, which is a bit of a shame really. Asides from the obvious physical discoveries and an amazing scanning technology in France, the rest was a whole lot of "what if?" speculating that moved it into Bad Sciencing. I had so many questions...How is it that the leader of the excavation hadn't been into the cave himself for 8 years? If ever there was a reason to drop a few kilos and get in shape, surely that would be it. Also, how is it they didn't share any chemical or other analyses to support their hypotheses? Or maybe they didn't have anything to fit their narrative? How do they know there were burials as opposed to lots of H. Naledi becoming stuck down there, and could the child with the tool in their hand just have fallen in the dark? Especially cringey was the emphatic connection of the rock scratchings they showed across 3 different species. These lines scratched into a rock reminded me of scratching lines into wooden desks at school when I was bored senseless in class. Perhaps it's art or perhaps they simply got stuck down there and became very bored? There was so much speculation, all of it by just a couple of people, and no wider corroboration with other experts or evidence presented. It's really annoying to be speculated at without any other hypotheses or scenarios being presented, as if they assume the audience isn't capability of critical thinking. Perhaps I should have realised by now that Netflix isn't the place to learn about good sciencing thingies.

It's all about the ego of the leader and how great he is. Very little we get to know about the discovery. The leader finds himself very intelligent and empathizing. He shows very fake emotions and all is very speculative. Science is far away. Take the carvings on the wall: they immediate assume it is from 'them'. How do the know? Maybe it was done 100 years ago by other homo sapiens or neanderthalers or .... They also assume that the 'tool' they find is for the afterlife and that they have thoughts about it. The whole documentary is like this assumptions. I was constantly waiting for more information about the discoveries, but we never get it.

This film is a weird juxtaposition of a documentary made for adults and a Disney film made exclusively for children. There was a lot of melancholic music, romanticism, mid-speech pauses meant to create suspense, assumptions, speculation, and emphasis on the archeologists' emotions. There was little to no hard science, and there were no disagreements whatsoever between the archaeologists. They spoke as if the audience shouldn't know that modern humans are Homo sapiens and that there existed all kinds of primates and Homo species in the past. I was surprised by the lack of context provided. Why not mention that Homo has existed for 2.8 MYA, or that Homo sapiens has existed for ~300,000 years? Why not mention that utilization of fire by Homo beings began way before Homo sapiens appeared? Why not present a timeline visualization of all the different Homo species that existed, to give some kind of context? They seemed to imply that Homo naledi was the first to utilize fire, which is false. The animations were too slow and too much in number. The melancholic and suspenseful music completely unnecessary. The entire thing can be condensed into ten minutes. I'm all for making archeology and science more accessible to the masses and connecting with the audience, but this is just too much. Something positive I found about the film is that it was videographically well-produced.

I was going to give this six stars but settled on a seven because this 'potentially' could be a real game changer, and I felt, after the last Unknown: segment of 'lost pyramid' sort of marred my opinion of this series of documentaries I should be fair. So, this instalment involves a group of archaeologists and palaeontologists investigating a series of rather inaccessible caves in South Africa, where they have discovered a human ancestor 'Homo Naledi' burial site from 250,000 years ago. Now, I'm obsessed with ancient history of all kinds so, like the last instalment, I was not going to miss, good or not. Thankfully this documentary is far more in depth, far more fact based and far more interesting then their 'lost pyramid' episode. I wont ruin any of it for people who have not seen it, but its a really nicely put together, informative and interesting film, with some very effective artists impression animation to try and visualise these people and their possible movements and motivations. Where this documentary falls short is it quite romanticised at times. This maybe down to the team who produced it. It makes a lot of assumptions and claims with, while possible, no evidence. And could have been made more credible by making far more likely claims like (slight spoiler), instead of attributing leaving a grave good as leaving a favourite object of a loved one, they attribute it solely as meditation on an afterlife. They also try to define a grave as definitively a burial and not funeral caching. However, these are some really fascinating discoveries. It seems unlikely this was anything but intentional and does really combat the idea of 'stupid caveman' and you dont need a huge brain to care for your loved ones. We see the product of loss in many other animals today so why we dont give out own ancestors enough credit never made sense to me. I really enjoyed this documentary. The cinematography is great, and although some of the interviews are slightly gushy, its really worth a watch. But take some of it with a pinch of salt.