Rising Star Cave
| Rising Star Cave | |
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| Location | Near Krugersdorp in the Greater Johannesburg metropolitan area of Gauteng province, South Africa |
| Coordinates | 25°55′S 27°47′E / 25.917°S 27.783°ECoordinates: 25°55′S 27°47′E / 25.917°S 27.783°E |
The Rising Star cave system (also known as Westminster or Empire cave) is located in the Malmani dolomites, in Bloubank River valley, about 800 meters (0.50 miles; 2,600 feet) southwest of Swartkrans, part of the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site in South Africa. Recreational caving has occurred there since the 1960s. Fossils found (starting in 2013) in the cave were, in 2015, proposed to represent a previously unknown extinct species of hominin named Homo naledi.
In the 1980s, the names "Empire", "Westminster", and "Rising Star" were used interchangeably.
The species name, naledi (seSotho for "star"), and the "Dinaledi Chamber" (incorporating the Sotho word for "stars") were so named by members of the Rising Star Expedition in reference to the species and chamber's location in Rising Star Cave.
A portion of the cave, used by the excavation team en route to the Dinaledi Chamber, is called "Superman's Crawl" because most people can fit through only by holding one arm tightly against the body and extending the other above the head, in the manner of Superman in flight.
The Superman Crawl opens into the "Dragon's Back Chamber," which includes a approximately 15 m (49 foot) exposed climb up a ridge of a sharp-edged dolomite block that fell from the roof sometime in the distant past. This block is the so-called Dragon's Back, so named because the climbing route appears to progress from the tail to the head along the spiked spine of a mythical beast.
Geologists think the cave in which the fossils were discovered is no older than three million years.
The cave was explored in the 1980s by the Speleological Exploration Club (SEC), a local branch of the South African Speleological Association (SASA).
On 13 September 2013, while exploring the Rising Star cave system, recreational cavers Rick Hunter and Steven Tucker of the Speleological Exploration Club (SEC) found a narrow, vertically oriented "chimney" or "chute" measuring 12 m (39 ft) long with an average width of 20 cm (7.9 in). Then Hunter discovered a room 30 m (98 ft) underground (Site U.W. 101, the Dinaledi Chamber), the surface of which was littered with fossil bones. On 1 October, photos of the site were shown to Pedro Boshoff and then to Lee Berger.
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Wikipedia