Underground Astronauts
The Underground Astronauts is the name given to a group of six scientists who excavated the bones of Homo naledi from the Dinaledi Chamber in South Africa. Hannah Morris, Marina Elliott, Becca Peixotto, Alia Gurtov, K. Lindsay Hunter, and Elen Feuerriegel were selected by expedition leader Lee Rogers Berger.
In November 2013, the National Geographic Society and the University of the Witwatersrand funded an expedition called Rising Star Expedition for a twenty-one day excavation at the cave, followed by a second expedition in March 2014 for a 4-week excavation in the Dinaledi Chamber. In total, the expedition retrieved 1,550 pieces of bone belonging to at least fifteen individuals, found within 1 m2 of clay-rich sediments. They entered a narrow opening in the cave to reach the chamber where the bones were located, and as the expedition was dangerous, they were named the Underground Astronauts.Excavator team
- Hannah Morris, archaeologist.
- Alia Gurtov is a University of Wisconsin – Madison Ph.D. candidate researching the effects of seasonality on hominin foraging at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania.
- Marina Elliott is originally from Calgary, Canada, and has a master's degree in biological anthropology from Simon Fraser University, Canada.
- Elen Feuerriegel, then a PhD candidate at the Australian National University, studying shoulder biomechanics with Colin Groves in Oldowan stone tool manufacture.
- Becca Peixotto is an archaeologist and Ph.D. student in the Department of Anthropology at American University in Washington, D.C.
- K. Lindsay Hunter is a biological anthropologist and current archaeology PhD student at the University of the Witwatersrand PhD, as well as the Project Manager/Facilitator for the National Geographic "Umsuka" Public Palaeoanthropology Project based in Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa. The Nat Geo "Umsuka" project has a focus on promoting education, inclusivity, and accessibility regarding the Cradle of Humankind. Following the 2013 expedition, Lindsay married Rick Hunter, one of the co-discoverers of Homo naledi.
