Rising Star Cave
The Rising Star cave system (also known as Westminster or Empire cave) is located in the Malmani dolomites, in Bloubank River valley, about 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. Names In the 1980s, the names "Empire", "Westminster", and "Rising Star" were used interchangeably. The species's 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 an approximately 15 m (49 foot) exposed climb up a ridge of a sharp-edged dolomite block that