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    Abila Revathy
    Berger discovered 15 skeletons of a previously unknown species of human ancestor in a South African cave. This was the largest collection of hominin remains ever found on the continent. Berger faced the difficulty of accessing the discovery through a narrow 7-inch passageway. He recruited a team of skinny female cavers, called "Underground Astronauts", who could squeeze through the tight space. The team helped uncover the significant new addition to the human family tree.

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    English Xii

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    Abila Revathy
    36 views2 pages
    Berger discovered 15 skeletons of a previously unknown species of human ancestor in a South African cave. This was the largest collection of hominin remains ever found on the continent. Berger faced the difficulty of accessing the discovery through a narrow 7-inch passageway. He recruited a team of skinny female cavers, called "Underground Astronauts", who could squeeze through the tight space. The team helped uncover the significant new addition to the human family tree.

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    Berger discovered 15 skeletons of a previously unknown species of human ancestor in a South African cave. This was the largest collection of hominin remains ever found on the continent. Berger faced the difficulty of accessing the discovery through a narrow 7-inch passageway. He recruited a team of skinny female cavers, called "Underground Astronauts", who could squeeze through the tight space. The team helped uncover the significant new addition to the human family tree.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    36 views2 pages

    English Xii

    Uploaded by

    Abila Revathy
    Berger discovered 15 skeletons of a previously unknown species of human ancestor in a South African cave. This was the largest collection of hominin remains ever found on the continent. Berger faced the difficulty of accessing the discovery through a narrow 7-inch passageway. He recruited a team of skinny female cavers, called "Underground Astronauts", who could squeeze through the tight space. The team helped uncover the significant new addition to the human family tree.

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    (CNN)Hidden deep within the innards of a South African cave lay human

    evolution's equivalent of Tutankhamun's tomb. A treasure trove of 15


    skeletons -- eight children, five adults and two adolescents -- all members of a
    previously unknown species of human ancestor. In the field of paleontology,
    uncovering just one complete skeleton has been likened to winning the lottery,
    but lying here were over 1,500 fossils amounting to multiple jackpots. This
    was the largest collection of homin remains -- part of the human lineage --
    ever discovered on the continent. In 2013, American paleoanthropologist Lee
    Berger was tantalizingly close to finding them. But there was a catch.
    Separating Berger from this bounty of bones was a narrow passageway in the
    rock just 7 inches (18 centimeters) high, known as "Superman's Crawl." It was
    the only entrance and exit available to the fossils and would require
    superhuman powers to squeeze through it, particularly for a man of Berger's
    stature. The gap was roughly the width of a letterbox and was not really an
    option for Berger. But he found a way to get round it. Berger posted a job
    description on Facebook calling out for skinny cavers to join his team at the
    University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. In reality, being skinny was not
    enough, as the soon-to-be employees would need to hold their breath in order
    to wriggle through the constricted passage. To Berger's amazement, over 60
    qualified applicants got in touch. In the end, he chose an all-female team of
    six. He called them his "Underground Astronauts". Together, they were about
    to bring home a baffling new addition to the human family tree. Berger had
    already firmly established himself in the field after discovering, in 2008, the
    fossils of yet another new species: Australopithecus sediba. Berger's nine-
    year-old son Matthew famously stumbled upon part of the skeleton -- "Dad I
    found a fossil!" -- while accompanying his father on a dig at the Malapa Nature
    Reserve, north of Johannesburg. But it was his discovery of naledi that really
    set Berger's name in the paleoanthropology stone, as it were. Finding Sediba,
    some five years earlier, had cemented Berger's conviction that this area of
    South Africa had more treasures hidden beneath the surface. It had already
    been dubbed the "Cradle of Humankind" for its abundance of fossils
    discovered in the 20th century. Based on your reading of the passage, answer
    the questions given below: i. Why was the discovery described as a ‘treasure
    trove’? ii. How can the discovery be compared to the discovery of
    Tutankhamun's tomb? iii. What difficulty did Berger face with regard to the
    find? iv. From the passage, choose two qualities required of “Underground
    Astronauts’? v. What was the task assigned to this team of ‘Underground
    Astronauts’? vi. What was the discovery Berger made in 2008? vii. Why is the
    place described as “cradle of civilization”?

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