Almost Human

Nearly a decade ago nine-year-old Matthew Berger stumbled across an ancient human collarbone while exploring among the caves of the Cradle of Humankind, north of Johannesburg. His father, paleoanthropologist Lee Berger, thought they had made the discovery of a lifetime; little did he know that five years later the same site would yield for him an even more significant find. In a sunless cave, more than thirty meters underground, lay the bones of individuals, fragments of skeletons unlike those ever seen before. With a team to make the perilous journey through rock channels and crevices, the bones were brought to the surface, and the true significance of the discovery became clear. We had a new ancestor; he would call this one Homo naledi. Fresh from this expedition, Berger and his colleague Josh Hawks share the thrill of discovery and the challenge of new ideas that dare to probe our deep-set understanding of who we are and how we got here. A gripping tale of science and exploration, Almost Human is an account of our ever-changing human story.