0:01

Hey everyone, Marshall here! I hope

0:03

your summer has been going great! Today

0:06

I've decided to take a road trip to a nearby cave.

0:09

It's a little bit cold down here, but there

0:11

are so many great sights! Stalagmites,

0:13

stalactites, um, I forget

0:16

which ones go up and which ones go down,

0:18

but anyway, it's not important. As

0:20

we go through the cave, we're going to be sharing some

0:22

of Tumble's previous spelunking adventures,

0:25

and... Oh! Oh, is that a bat?

0:28

It looks like our first episode up is

0:30

going to be the journey to the Bat

0:32

Cave!

0:37

Hi, I'm Lindsay. And I'm

0:39

Marshall. Welcome to Tumble, the show where

0:41

we explore stories of science discovery.

0:44

Today we're headed to the Bat

0:46

Cave! Wait, you mean the place where Batman

0:48

and Robin hang out, waiting for calls about

0:51

crimes in Gotham City? No,

0:53

it's way cooler than that!

0:55

We're going on a field trip to the biggest bat

0:58

colony in the entire world, where

1:00

we'll meet a bat biologist and

1:02

find out how bats learn to be

1:04

bats.

1:14

One morning this summer, I got up

1:16

to watch the sunrise on an old ranch

1:18

outside of San Antonio, Texas. But

1:21

there was one element of the sunrise you

1:23

can't see or hear anywhere else

1:26

in the world.

1:27

That sound

1:29

is wind passing over millions of bat wings. So this is the beginning

1:36

of when the bats start to rain down in the

1:38

morning. That's real life bat woman slash

1:40

bat biologist Jessica Dreyer.

1:43

I met her around 6am

1:45

near the entrance to Bracken Cave, which

1:47

is home to 15 million Mexican

1:50

free-tailed bats.

1:51

Wait, 15 million bats? Yeah, it's

1:56

the largest concentration of mammals

1:59

on the planet! When

2:01

you are standing by the cave and you look up

2:03

into the sky, pretty much as far

2:06

as you can see upwards, you'll just see these

2:08

little dots appear out of the sky and they'll just

2:10

drop straight down. And they've been clocked

2:12

at about 40 miles an hour dropping into the cave.

2:15

And so, I mean, literally thousands

2:18

of bats will be raining down

2:21

over you coming back into the cave. And

2:23

it is one of the most cool otherworldly

2:26

experiences you'll ever have. It

2:30

was like being in some sort of secret

2:33

bat world. But what made it even

2:35

more special was that this huge cloud

2:38

of bats was made up only

2:40

of mothers and their babies.

2:42

Whoa, it's a big mom's group.

2:46

So we're approaching that point right now where the

2:48

sun is starting to rise and more bats are

2:50

starting to come in from a night of feeding. Are

2:53

we going to get pooped on? Yeah,

2:56

yeah. If you're standing close enough to

2:58

the cave, yes, you will get

3:00

some rain, some urine rain and

3:03

some poop landing on your head.

3:05

I hope you brought your bat

3:07

raincoat or, should I say,

3:09

poop coat. I

3:12

actually don't have one. This

3:15

is so incredibly amazing.

3:18

Where else can you see this kind of

3:20

thing? Not many places in the world. And,

3:23

you know, it doesn't seem to matter how many times

3:26

you've seen it. It always blows your

3:28

mind. Jessica's seen it

3:31

a lot. All summer she's been

3:33

camping outside the cave, and

3:35

every night she's up between 2 a.m.

3:38

and 9 a.m. catching bats.

3:41

And that's what I've come to see.

3:43

Wait, wait. Catching bats? Just

3:46

like grabbing them out of the air? Like, how

3:49

and why? Let's

3:51

talk about why first.

3:55

The point of this whole project that I'm working

3:58

on is to figure out... So

4:00

what's the transition looks like when

4:03

a baby bat goes from drinking

4:06

only its mother's milk to learning

4:09

how to catch its own bugs and then finally

4:12

feeding itself entirely on bugs

4:14

that it catches

4:14

itself? In other

4:16

words, she's trying to figure out how

4:19

bat babies get weaned from

4:21

their mommies. That's something

4:23

we do as human babies, except we

4:25

don't start eating bugs. It's usually fruit

4:27

or something. It's avocado.

4:30

Yeah, but so while this is

4:32

a delightful time for humans to

4:34

spread, you know, food all over their

4:37

faces, this is actually one

4:39

of the most difficult times in a

4:41

young bat's life. So

4:43

you're a young bat, you're still growing. You're

4:46

trying to figure out how to fly, how

4:48

to echolocate, how to catch bugs. All

4:51

of this is happening at the same time and

4:53

your milk supplies that you're getting fed

4:56

are decreasing. And so you are

4:58

expending a ton of energy trying to

5:00

learn

5:00

how to be a bat and the energy

5:03

that's coming in is decreasing. So Jessica's

5:06

goal is to figure out how that process

5:08

actually works.

5:10

And to do that, she has to catch a lot

5:12

of bats. So we're approaching the

5:14

mouth of the cave right now.

5:17

It's a quick hike from the viewing area

5:19

where I met Jessica to the bat-catching

5:22

spot. And

5:24

we really just stand right in

5:26

front of the opening of the cave, right

5:29

in the middle, because the bats, when

5:31

they're dropping down into the cave

5:34

from the sky, they sort

5:36

of aim for the middle top

5:39

of the cave. And so that's where the most

5:41

bats are and it gives us our best chance of catching them.

5:44

So I'm with my technician. His name is Harry

5:46

and he has the butterfly

5:49

net. And so he's just going to go ahead and stick the butterfly

5:51

net straight up into the air. And he doesn't

5:53

even have to move it.

5:54

Wait, they catch bats with a butterfly

5:56

net? Like there's not a special bat net? circle

6:00

floating in the air and they fly right into

6:02

it. He's already caught a bat and it's

6:04

been about a split second that he's had the net in

6:06

the air. So he just reaches in with

6:09

his hand and he's wearing a baseball

6:12

glove or a golf glove. It's just a

6:14

thin leather glove to protect himself from

6:16

bat bites. And you

6:19

might've heard that on the mic, he just dropped the

6:21

bat into one of the little paper bags that

6:23

I'm holding open for him. And so

6:25

I fold the paper bag over, I close

6:27

it up with a clothes pin

6:29

and I write the time of capture on the

6:31

bag. And so it is 6.52. So

6:35

there are bat bags. Can you get those at Target?

6:38

You actually can. They're like

6:40

regular brown paper lunch

6:42

bags, the kind you would bring to

6:44

school. And then here's

6:46

the thing,

6:47

after they catch the bats, they put them in a little

6:50

cooler. It's

6:53

like this one's for lunch, this one's for the bats. Yeah,

6:55

there's no ice. It's just to

6:58

carry the bats. He

7:00

just dropped the second bat into the bag, 6.53.

7:05

So he's got the net back up in the air and he's

7:08

already caught a third bat. So as

7:10

I watched from about 50 yards away,

7:13

I could see Jessica and Harry standing

7:15

in the swarm of bats, raising

7:18

and lowering the net like they're picking apples

7:20

or something.

7:22

All right, so we have 10 bats. So we

7:25

are just gonna go ahead and carry

7:27

our cooler with our bags full of bats

7:30

back up to the top of the sinkhole so that we

7:32

can work on our data collection. The

7:35

data collection is the time-consuming

7:38

part. To do that, we walked

7:40

back with the cooler to a small clearing

7:42

where there's a little outdoor lab. Now

7:45

we have this table set up with all of our equipment

7:47

on it, and

7:49

this is where we process the bats.

7:51

So what exactly does it mean to process

7:54

a bat, like they have to fill out a form and

7:56

make sure they get their social security number right?

7:58

No, it's... It means that they're

8:00

going to go through a series of steps

8:03

to collect information about each

8:05

bat. It starts with Harry

8:07

weighing them, while they're still inside

8:09

the lunch bag. So

8:13

once he's done, I just go

8:16

ahead and pull out the bat.

8:20

And so now I've got a

8:22

little juvenile male

8:25

bat in my hand. And

8:28

if you put your two thumbs next to each

8:30

other, that's about how big the body

8:32

of the bat is. Oh my god,

8:35

that's so amazing. Wow,

8:39

he's got his wings all spread

8:42

out and you can see the membranes. Oh,

8:44

and he's so tiny. And

8:47

they only weigh, I don't

8:49

know, like 10, 12 grams,

8:50

which is about the weight of two quarters.

8:53

So the next time you go to the dollar store and you're holding 50

8:55

cents, that's about how much one of these

8:58

bats weighs. So they're really

9:00

little tiny guys. Yeah, but

9:02

really feisty.

9:04

As we talked, the bat chomped down

9:06

on Jessica's gloves with its tiny sharp

9:08

teeth and it started screaming

9:11

at her. And

9:13

that's this little guy making those squeaking

9:15

noises.

9:15

So

9:18

that's what a bat sounds like when it's trying

9:20

to squirm out of your grasp. Exactly

9:23

what it sounds like. And I have to say

9:25

bats are a lot different up close

9:28

than I'd imagined. They're

9:29

actually kind of cute. To me, they look

9:31

like little puppies and they've got these huge

9:34

ears and these little wrinkly lips

9:37

and these little whiskers. And

9:39

so one of my favorite things to do is to bring

9:41

people out to actually see bats up close

9:43

because a lot of times it'll change the

9:46

way that they feel about bats, which is one

9:49

of the most rewarding aspects of this work

9:51

for me.

9:52

Once we're

9:54

finished oohing and eyeing over the

9:56

adorable baby bat, Jessica

9:59

got to

9:59

work. First, she had to figure

10:02

out how old the bat was by measuring

10:04

the distance between two joint

10:06

bones in its wing. I've got a microscope

10:08

here that, oddly enough,

10:11

I actually backlight with my cell phone

10:12

because that's the

10:15

best way to see the joint and I measure the gap

10:17

through the microscope. She

10:19

also drew blood from the tail and collected

10:22

pellets of poop that the bats left

10:24

behind in the bag. And

10:26

then there's the issue of

10:27

bat milk. I

10:30

always love the job of a scientist. I

10:32

know. Bat milk

10:35

is actually really difficult to get. I'm

10:37

sure. I'm sure it is. I mean, it

10:40

really is like milking a cow

10:43

or any other animal. It's just that they're so tiny.

10:46

What was it like the first time you milked a bat? Very

10:50

difficult. So

10:52

it has tested my patience. But

10:55

yeah, so the first time I

10:57

ever milked a bat, we

11:00

were catching them earlier in the night and

11:03

so they hadn't really produced a lot of milk yet.

11:05

And so I wasn't sure if I

11:07

was doing it wrong or if the bats just

11:10

didn't have milk. And so the first one

11:12

that I was able to successfully milk, like,

11:15

I don't, we, I think, like threw

11:17

our hands up into the air and like jumped

11:19

up and down because we were so excited that it

11:21

finally worked. I can imagine not

11:23

too many people have successfully milked a

11:25

bat. Like

11:27

probably not enough to make cheese even. Yeah,

11:30

I think artisanal bat cheese is not

11:32

a thing for a good reason.

11:34

It'd be like a tiny

11:37

little pellet. Yeah. I

11:40

should also say that you really

11:42

shouldn't try to catch a bat yourself because

11:44

there's definitely a risk of rabies. Noted. So

11:47

what

11:49

does Jessica do with all these bat fluids

11:51

and measurements? She uses them

11:53

for a little bit of science detective

11:55

work to figure out what the bats

11:57

have been eating. So

11:59

So I'm going to be doing stable

12:02

isotope analysis from the

12:04

milk samples and then also from insect samples.

12:07

Stable isotope analysis is a technique

12:10

that reveals a unique chemical

12:12

fingerprint in bat food. Jessica's

12:15

challenge is to find those fingerprints

12:17

within samples of blood in the pellets

12:19

of poop from the babies. Once

12:22

she does that, she can track how

12:24

the bat's diet changes from milk

12:27

to insects over the course of

12:29

the summer.

12:30

So that's really cool, but why

12:32

is it important to know how bats are weaned? One

12:35

of the reasons is simply that we don't know.

12:38

Bats are pretty understudied

12:41

up till now, and so there's a lot of really basic

12:43

questions that we just don't know about bats. So

12:45

that in itself is enough

12:48

to drive me to ask a question, but it's more than

12:50

that.

12:51

What Jessica learns could be really

12:53

important for conservation, meaning

12:56

how we protect animal species

12:58

and their environment. Understanding

13:01

the most stressful periods with the highest mortality

13:03

rates are really important. I guess a

13:05

classic example of that is our

13:08

protection strategies with sea turtles. We

13:10

often will put cages over nests of sea

13:12

turtle eggs because it's an easy thing that we can do

13:14

to help increase sea turtle survivorship.

13:17

And so it's kind of the same idea there. We want

13:19

to make sure we know as much as possible

13:22

about their life history so that we can make the

13:24

best decisions we can.

13:25

So I guess we want to do what

13:27

we can to make sure that more adorable

13:29

animal babies survive to become even

13:31

cuter adults so that they can have

13:33

another generation of even cuter

13:36

animal babies.

13:38

It's a circle of life. It's

13:40

a circle of cuteness. So

13:44

a huge part of making that happen

13:46

is protecting animal habitat.

13:49

Jessica's able to do her research because

13:51

a group called Bat Conservation

13:53

International bought the land that

13:55

the bat cave is on in order to preserve

13:57

it.

13:58

Bat Conservationists. the

14:00

real life bat people. And really,

14:02

anyone could grow up to be a real

14:05

bat person. It's not just

14:07

for superheroes. You know,

14:09

five years ago, I never, ever

14:12

would have guessed that this is what I would have been doing.

14:15

I get to be right next to the largest group of

14:17

mammals in the whole world, and that's,

14:20

not a lot of people get to do that and get the

14:22

privilege to study them, so I feel

14:24

extremely fortunate that I'm

14:27

the kid that gets to do this.

14:29

If you were a bat

14:32

person, what would you study? Draw

14:34

us a picture or send us a recording. Send

14:36

it to tumblepodcast at gmail.com

14:39

or use the contact form on our website.

14:42

We can't wait to hear your bat

14:44

adventures. All

14:52

right, I hope you liked learning about the bat caves

14:55

because we have some more bat-filled fun for

14:57

you. Up next is a very special bonus

14:59

episode

15:00

inside the bat cave.

15:07

Hi, I'm Lindsay. And I'm Marshall.

15:10

Welcome to Tumble, the show where we explore

15:12

stories of science discovery. We have

15:14

a different kind of show for you today. We're

15:16

gonna take you behind the scenes of Tumble

15:19

and share one of our favorite scientist

15:21

interviews.

15:22

In every episode, we tell a

15:24

story with the help of scientists. That

15:26

means that we do lots of interviews, but you

15:29

usually just hear short clips of them.

15:30

Those clips come from long conversations

15:33

with scientists. And I wanted to share

15:36

more of the fascinating science that doesn't

15:39

always make it into the show.

15:41

So I started making these bonus

15:43

interview shows for all of our Patreon

15:46

members. Today, we're sharing the interview

15:48

with bat biologist, Jessica Dreyer,

15:50

from the journey to the bat cave. We

15:52

really recommend listening to that episode if you

15:55

haven't already. It's about how Jessica

15:57

is discovering how bats learn to be bats.

15:59

the biggest bat colony in the world. Bracken

16:02

Cave is just outside San Antonio,

16:05

Texas, and it's home to around 15 million

16:08

bats, the most mammals

16:10

you'll find in one place on

16:12

Earth. In this part

16:14

of our interview, I start by asking Jessica

16:17

about the cave itself.

16:26

What makes it so unique and why

16:29

is it here of all places? That's

16:31

a good question. The cave itself

16:34

was formed by water, and

16:36

so there used to be shallow seas here, and over

16:39

time water has just carved out

16:41

this cave. It's here just because of

16:43

the geology. We

16:45

don't completely understand yet what

16:47

makes bats choose the caves that

16:50

they do, but the bats have been using this

16:52

cave for thousands of years. The

16:55

guano in that cave

16:56

is more than 75 feet deep. So

17:00

there's a lot of guano and a lot of bats. The

17:04

actual environment of the cave is really, really

17:06

interesting. Typically

17:09

when you walk into a cave, maybe

17:12

not typically, but often times you'll see those stalactites

17:15

and stalagmites and really cool rock formations.

17:18

In this cave, because the bats have been

17:20

in there so long, urinating and

17:22

defecating and spreading their body oils

17:24

everywhere, all of those formations are gone.

17:27

They've actually just worn away from

17:30

all of those different fluids from the bats. So

17:32

it kind of looks like what you might

17:34

imagine the moon to look like. The

17:37

guano turns into this sandy, powdery

17:40

substance because there's beetles

17:43

in there that eat bat guano and break it

17:45

down. So

17:47

it feels like you're walking through sand when you're

17:49

in there, and the ceilings and the

17:51

walls are just jam-packed with

17:54

bats and they're flying around. Like

17:56

when I go into a cave, I have to wear a full

17:59

face. respirator that filters out

18:01

the ammonia and also

18:03

the fungal spores

18:05

and the feces and I

18:08

wear you know a protective helmet and long

18:10

sleeves and pants and boots just to protect myself

18:13

from the gases and

18:15

the beetles and the

18:17

poop and pee that is constantly raining

18:19

down on your head. So it's it's

18:22

an alien environment in there, but it's a really

18:24

cool experience. Yeah, so you've

18:26

been down there? I have yeah I went

18:29

down there to look and see if there were any babies

18:32

left sort of late in the season so that I

18:34

would have a reference to know

18:37

when weaning was you know starting

18:39

and when the babies were all starting

18:42

to fly. And how big

18:44

is the cave for like you know 15

18:46

million bats? Yeah, smaller

18:49

than you would think so this cave extends

18:51

about 650 feet back and

18:53

it's basically just one oval

18:56

shaped chamber. There's

18:59

bats

18:59

all over like from front

19:02

to back on the ceilings and the walls and

19:04

they are able to pack in

19:06

really really tightly so for the adults

19:09

you can find between 200 and 500 adults

19:11

in in

19:13

like a square foot. What?

19:16

Yeah, that is dense. It's

19:18

super dense because they'll you know the surface

19:20

is uneven so they'll get in all the little cracks

19:22

and crevices and they'll actually roost on top of

19:25

each other and the little

19:27

babies because when the babies come out they're a lot smaller

19:29

than the adults

19:29

and those can be packed

19:32

in as densely as 4,000 or 5,000 per square meter. It's

19:38

like they're like the material of

19:40

the cave roof like yeah all

19:42

you see is just swaths of

19:45

fur or naked pink babies and

19:47

it's really really neat because the adults the

19:50

females will go and they'll stick their babies

19:52

in these nursery areas of the cave so

19:54

all the babies are together and that helps

19:56

keep them warm and also helps

19:59

probably keep the females from going insane

20:01

from hungry babies. But

20:03

yeah, so you'll just see, you know,

20:06

this gigantic area of pink

20:08

naked babies. It's wild.

20:11

Wow. And so what makes bracken

20:13

a maternity cave or like well known

20:15

for that? So bracken,

20:18

we call them maternity colony because this

20:20

species is migratory. And so they

20:23

spend the winters down

20:25

in Mexico and Central America. When

20:27

they come back, the males and

20:29

the

20:29

females kind of split up. And the females

20:32

will go to these caves and

20:34

form maternity colonies that are just completely

20:37

or mostly formed of females. And they'll

20:39

all give birth right around the same time within

20:41

a couple of weeks of each other in mid-June,

20:44

early June. And that's

20:46

why we call them maternity colonies because it's totally

20:49

composed of females and their babies. And

20:52

then the males go hang out in smaller

20:54

bachelor colonies. And

20:58

how do the bats

20:59

give birth? It's

21:02

live birth, right? Yeah, yeah. So they're mammals,

21:04

so they give live birth. So

21:07

normally bats hang upside down by

21:09

their feet. And you guys did an episode on that. But

21:12

when they give birth, they actually turn

21:15

the other way and they hang by their thumbs. And

21:18

then the baby

21:20

will pop out and they'll catch it in their

21:23

uropitagem, which is that membrane that stretches

21:25

between their bottom legs. And so

21:27

they'll kind of catch it and scoop it up

21:29

with their uropitagem. And the baby will

21:32

just cling on to the mother's body. And

21:35

they're able to do that immediately after birth.

21:37

They're able to grab hold and hang

21:39

on to the mother pretty well. Do

21:42

people keep bats as pets? No,

21:44

they would make terrible pets. They're nocturnal

21:47

and they poop a lot. And you'd have

21:49

to feed them insects all the time, like tons

21:51

of insects. And they

21:53

would fly around your house and just make a mess. And

21:55

so I think they would make horrible pets. But

21:57

there are people that do wildlife research.

21:59

rehabilitation that will rehabilitate

22:02

bats, which is if you, you know, YouTube

22:04

videos of baby fruit bats

22:07

being

22:07

Coddled up

22:09

in little blankies like we saw last

22:11

night when we googled the words cute bats.

22:14

Exactly And their cheeks are full of fruit

22:16

and

22:16

yes, they're adorable

22:23

All right, those bats are awesome cave

22:25

has so many incredible things even some fossils

22:29

Let's learn about some intrepid explorers who do

22:31

some fossil hunting of their own up. Next

22:33

is the cave of the underground astronauts

22:39

Hi, I'm Lindsay and I'm Marshall

22:42

welcome to tumble the show where we explore

22:44

stories of science discovery today

22:46

We're climbing deep into a cave to

22:48

meet three underground astronauts

22:52

underground astronauts like they're in hiding

22:54

or something no, they're

22:57

Archaeologists on an expedition to find

22:59

fossils from one of our ancient relatives

23:02

But like astronauts in space they

23:04

have some pretty special talents and

23:06

a love of adventure

23:11

There

23:11

we go, can you hear us? Yes,

23:13

I can. Oh great I'm

23:16

Marina and Becca

23:18

and we have Kenny here as well

23:21

I'm sitting at my desk talking over

23:23

Skype to Marina Elliott Becca

23:25

Pichoto and Kenny Molipania They're

23:28

part of a team of archaeologists working in

23:31

South Africa But it's

23:33

kind of an unusual interview setup.

23:35

They're in a cave 30 meters underground

23:39

Oh, that's like a hundred feet. Sorry

23:41

Lindsay Give us a second while we try to get

23:44

ourselves into a place in the cave. That's actually reasonably

23:46

comfortable and you can see us Right

23:49

the challenges of you know doing interviews from underground.

23:51

So

23:51

How do you

23:54

get Skype in a cave? Is there just like

23:56

a desktop in there when they got in? wiring

24:01

and then Wi-Fi. Becca, Marina,

24:03

and Kenny squeezed together to fit

24:06

into the screen. They were wearing hard

24:08

hats with headlamps and pants with

24:10

reflective tape. They were sitting

24:12

in what's called the De Naledi

24:14

Chamber of the Rising Star Cave

24:17

System, about 50 miles

24:19

from Johannesburg. It's the

24:22

site of a major discovery in the history

24:24

of humankind. Homo Naledi.

24:27

Here's Becca. Homo Naledi

24:29

is an early hominid.

24:32

We don't know if it's an ancestor or probably

24:35

more like a cousin. And it's

24:38

about 250,000 years old. So

24:41

far, it's only been found in this one cave system

24:43

in South Africa. Hominid is

24:46

the name of the group of species that includes

24:48

modern humans and our extinct relatives,

24:51

like Neanderthals. The caves

24:53

in this part of South Africa have been a hotbed

24:56

of hominid discovery for the past hundred

24:58

years. Homo

24:59

Naledi was one of the biggest finds ever.

25:03

They found not just one specimen

25:05

or one body, but 15.

25:07

So how did they find this? Was

25:09

there like a treasure map and a pirate

25:11

going like, Arrrr, if

25:14

you look here, you'll find my buried treasure

25:16

and a bunch of monkey bones.

25:18

Well,

25:21

it didn't happen quite like

25:23

that. Back

25:26

in 2013, two cavers were exploring

25:28

the cave system when they found a tiny

25:31

gap in the cave wall. They

25:33

squeezed through it into an open chamber,

25:36

and with the light from their headlamps,

25:38

they saw bones literally scattered

25:41

across the surface of the floor.

25:43

Wow, but if people had been

25:46

exploring caves in the area for a hundred

25:48

years, how did they miss these fossils

25:50

just laying out in the open?

25:51

Well, to say it's hard

25:54

to get to the Dinoletti chamber would be

25:56

a total understatement. I'll let

25:58

Kenny describe how she beckoned the house.

25:59

and Marina get there every day.

26:03

Our first obstacle is the Superman's

26:05

Crawl. We would get down on

26:07

our beddies and just wiggle our way through

26:09

this tunnel.

26:10

Oh boy. That

26:12

sounds like, ugh, really,

26:15

I couldn't do that. Yeah, there's

26:17

lots of small spaces. Superman's

26:20

crawl is less than 10 inches high. Oh

26:23

my gosh. And that's just the beginning.

26:26

Next comes a climb up a jagged rock

26:28

wall. And then you climb up Dragon's Back,

26:31

jump over Leap of Faith, which is a meter

26:34

distance leap from one point to the

26:36

next point.

26:37

Dragon's Back, Leap

26:40

of Faith. My goodness. This

26:42

just sounds like one of the most super

26:45

intense things a person can do.

26:47

And then we enter into what I call the

26:49

Crystal Chandelier Chamber, where

26:52

you like unclip your harness and sort

26:54

of brace yourself for facing the chute. This

26:57

is the gut clenching part, the chute.

27:00

It's what kept Dinoletti Chamber a secret

27:02

for hundreds of thousands of years. It's

27:05

literally a crack in the wall. And

27:08

the chute has an 18 centimeter pinch

27:10

point, which is where you hold your breath, say

27:12

a little prayer, and squeeze through. And

27:15

then, yeah, then you make it into the chamber,

27:17

the fossil chamber. Hold on,

27:19

did she say 18 centimeters? Yes,

27:22

that's seven inches. That's

27:25

like the size of two and a half hot wheels

27:27

cars laid end to end. I

27:29

love that that's your unit of measurement. Isn't

27:32

that everybody's unit of measurement? Yeah,

27:34

so your entire body has to fit through

27:36

the space of two and a half

27:39

hot wheels

27:40

cars. Oh my gosh. I

27:44

can't do that. What I really

27:46

can't imagine actually is how someone thought to

27:48

find this cave. It's

27:50

one of those happy accident kind of things. If

27:53

the cavers hadn't been tiny people

27:55

too, they never would have found it. But

27:58

getting there isn't the only thing.

27:59

challenge. Becca described

28:02

the other creatures that they encountered

28:04

on their way to work that morning. There

28:06

were six or seven bats

28:08

we sort of woke up I suppose and they were

28:11

trying very hard to figure out which way they should go to

28:13

get out of our way. Not only

28:15

have I been woken up early but now I have to sit

28:17

in traffic too. What

28:20

a miserable way to start a bat night.

28:24

Anyhow once the excavators get down

28:26

there they work up to eight

28:28

hours.

28:29

So okay like main

28:32

question do they get bathroom breaks? You

28:34

know if you decide while you're underground that you

28:36

need to use the restroom you have to wait

28:39

till you get above ground to do that so you have to plan

28:41

ahead a little anticipate your

28:43

needs so that you can get out through that 18

28:45

centimeter gap and through the Superman crawl and everything

28:48

else.

28:48

Okay so like crawling through

28:51

tiny cracks in the wall to look

28:53

at ancient bones is

28:55

like pretty unusual job so how

28:58

do you get it? Well you

29:00

answer a Facebook ad to be an

29:03

underground astronaut. Here's

29:05

how Kenny described finding the

29:07

gig. I was procrastinating

29:10

just trolling around Facebook

29:13

and Instagram and he was this ad and I was

29:15

like I'm gonna take it. So

29:17

like what did the ad say? Well

29:19

first of all you need to be small enough

29:21

to fit through that 18 centimeter hole

29:24

in a wall. First thing was can

29:26

you fit through a small hole? So

29:28

you don't just need the body you need

29:31

the brains too. The expedition

29:33

needed people with skills in excavating

29:35

fossils and studying them. Here's

29:38

Marina. You needed to be

29:40

able to work well in a small team

29:42

not be claustrophobic not

29:45

be scared of heights be willing to

29:47

you know fly to South Africa for a

29:49

month without pay and work underground in

29:51

a potentially dangerous environment.

29:53

I mean who wouldn't

29:54

sign up to work in a dangerous environment for

29:56

no pay? You'll have to be crazy not

29:59

to do it. Yeah, I just read adventure and

30:01

I was like, yep, we're sold.

30:10

So if you love adventure and don't mind small

30:12

enclosed spaces, like really, really

30:15

small enclosed spaces,

30:17

being an underground astronaut would be like a

30:19

dream job. Yeah, you get the

30:21

chance to be part of a huge discovery

30:24

in early human history. On

30:26

the original expedition in 2013,

30:29

Marina and Becca helped collect the first

30:32

bones of Homo naledi that had ever

30:34

been studied. We excavated just

30:36

one unit, which was basically 80 centimeters

30:39

by 80 centimeters by 20 centimeters

30:41

deep. We took some material off the surface,

30:44

but all told we ended up with about 1500 fossil

30:47

fragments. Wow, that's incredible,

30:49

like having a 1500 piece puzzle

30:51

with no photo on the box. Yeah,

30:54

and it was a species that no one had ever

30:57

seen before. So definitely

30:59

no photo on the box. Scientists

31:02

carefully constructed 15 skeletons

31:04

from the 1500 fossil pieces. Then

31:07

they were able to imagine what Homo naledi

31:10

would have looked like while they were alive.

31:13

Becca kind of painted a picture for me. If

31:15

you were to see a Homo naledi on the street, you

31:17

would not think that it looked a

31:20

lot like us. It still has

31:22

a lot in common with humans. It

31:24

walked on two feet. Its feet in fact

31:26

look an awful lot like ours. It

31:28

was really short.

31:30

Even the adults were under five feet

31:32

tall. On the reconstructions, the head of

31:34

Homo naledi looks kind of small for its body.

31:37

Its brain was less than half the size

31:39

of ours. Its forehead had a

31:41

steep slope, kind of like an ape. And

31:45

then it has shoulders that are a

31:47

lot like a gibbon. It also had long,

31:49

curved fingers like a modern day monkey.

31:52

That suggests to us that maybe Homo naledi was

31:55

still doing lots of climbing in some way. But

31:57

the bones in its thumbs and wrists.

31:59

suggests that they could have used tools,

32:02

which is like a really advanced skill for most

32:04

species. So what does this discovery

32:06

tell us about humans? Here's what Marina

32:09

said. You know, the human family tree is a lot

32:11

bushier than people sometimes make

32:13

it out to be. It's not just a

32:15

straight line from one ancient

32:17

hominid species down to us.

32:20

At the 350 to 250,000 year point, certainly in Africa,

32:25

you know, anatomically modern humans were already

32:27

on the landscape. So like we might have

32:30

had some homo naledis over for a party. Or

32:33

we could have been fighting with them. I mean, maybe

32:36

both. God, we're not

32:38

inviting the naledis over again. They

32:41

always smash the table and steal all the fruit.

32:43

They're not even that good at using spoons. Anyhow,

32:47

scientists are starting to piece together

32:50

what it would have looked like to have several

32:52

hominid species on Earth at one

32:54

time. The fact that we discovered

32:57

homo naledi so recently proves

32:59

that there's still so much out there

33:02

to find. It's pretty exciting

33:04

to find a bunch of phones that belong to a

33:06

creature that hadn't been described before in science

33:09

that, you know, nobody had ever seen before.

33:16

So if they were able to construct homo naledi

33:18

from that first expedition, why did they keep

33:20

coming back to the cave? That's a really good

33:22

question. And here's Marina's

33:25

answer. I think it's really important not

33:27

just to, you know, bring these initial

33:30

fossils up and go, okay, we know all about homo

33:32

naledi because we really don't. In other

33:34

words, they want to know what more there is

33:36

to discover. And there are definitely

33:38

more fossils left.

33:40

We've already hit quite a lot of bones. So what are they hoping

33:42

to find out? I mean, one of the, I think the

33:44

big questions is why and how

33:47

were they getting into this deep area

33:49

of the cave? The big mystery is

33:51

how homo naledi ended up in a place

33:53

that's nearly impossible to access.

33:56

Maybe there was an easier entrance to

33:58

the cave. closed up sometime in

34:01

the last 250,000 years. That's

34:03

definitely a possibility that they're exploring.

34:05

But how did so many bones

34:08

end up there? There's no evidence

34:10

that Homo naledi actually lived

34:13

in the cave. No plants, no other

34:15

bones of other animals, no nothing.

34:18

Here's the best idea scientists have.

34:21

The Dinaledi chamber was actually

34:23

a burial ground. We're

34:26

still working on the hypothesis that

34:28

Homo naledi was deliberately bringing its dead

34:30

into this very difficult to access space.

34:34

We've been at it for five years now, and we haven't found

34:36

a better explanation.

34:38

Many scientists don't believe that such

34:40

a small-brained species could have had

34:42

funerals. That's part of the reason

34:44

why Marina, Becca, Kenny, and

34:47

others keep looking for more fossils

34:49

that might give us more clues to the mystery.

34:52

You don't sort of find the answer, and

34:54

that's the end of it. And you can kind of wash your hands and go

34:56

home. Every time we come out, we

34:58

find something new, and every time we find

35:01

something new, we revise

35:03

our ideas based on the new evidence.

35:06

So the whole funeral idea could be buried

35:09

by the new fossils they find. Yeah,

35:12

I see what you did there. It's a

35:14

pun. Yeah. And that would

35:17

be scientific progress to have

35:19

a completely new idea in maybe

35:21

just a few years.

35:22

OK, so how does one, not me but

35:25

someone, become an underground astronaut?

35:27

Just spend a lot of time procrastinating on

35:30

social media.

35:30

That's one aspect. The

35:33

other part is to actually get out

35:35

there and do stuff. All

35:37

three women told me that they couldn't have predicted

35:39

that they'll be sitting in a cave, digging

35:42

up precious fossils, and doing podcast

35:44

interviews. But they all had

35:47

adventurous experiences that somehow

35:49

led them there.

35:50

Marina had this advice. Try

35:53

everything and anything. Try things you think

35:55

you'll like. Try things you think you might not like.

35:57

Do it safely, but be curious and get out

35:59

there.

35:59

Kenny, do you have anything you want to add?

36:02

Adventure! So

36:12

I might not be an underground astronaut,

36:15

but I still feel like one in this cave. Certainly,

36:18

I'm not going to go through any like three-inch holes

36:20

where I have to flatten my pelvis to get through. Oh!

36:24

What's this? Looks like someone

36:27

left a pickaxe lying around. To

36:29

investigate, let's check out one more

36:31

cave adventure. The

36:32

Cave of the Neanderthal Tools.

36:36

Hi, I'm Lindsay. And

36:38

I'm Marshall. Welcome to Tumble, the show where

36:40

we explore stories of science discovery. Today,

36:43

we're learning about what Neanderthal's

36:45

tools can tell us. Are these

36:47

tools keeping us up with all the Neanderthal

36:49

hot gossip? Not quite,

36:52

but they can answer a lot of questions

36:54

about how Neanderthals live. We'll

36:57

find out how archaeologists went from

37:00

blowing up caves to making stone

37:02

puzzles and discover the clues

37:04

within tools. I can't wait to find

37:06

out, right after this.

37:10

Before we get started, we've got a quick pronunciation

37:12

guide. This episode is about Neanderthals,

37:15

which is spelled Neanderthals.

37:18

Scientists pronounce it Neanderthals

37:20

because it's German, and Germans pronounce

37:22

sounds differently than English.

37:24

We're going to pronounce it like the scientists do,

37:27

but you can say Neanderthals if you

37:29

want. Now that that's settled, let's

37:31

get to the show. Our

37:34

listener Leo sent us a question about

37:36

Neanderthals. Hi, my

37:39

name is Leo. I am seven

37:41

years old. Can you name me

37:43

some of the tools that Neanderthals

37:45

made? Leo named a few of his

37:48

own ideas. My guess

37:50

of what some of the tools that they made

37:53

is like hunting tools like weapons

37:55

and bow and arrows and stuff. Maybe

37:57

not exactly bow and arrows, but...

37:59

like maybe like sharpened sticks. I

38:02

mean, everyone definitely has use for a sharpened

38:04

stick, but how does a scientist

38:07

really know what kind of tools they use?

38:09

Well, Leo has some ideas for

38:11

that too. I think that scientists

38:14

can find out the real answer by

38:17

looking for tools

38:19

in sight,

38:20

or matching brain

38:23

sizes to close

38:26

relatives of Neanderthals

38:29

that we know a lot about, so

38:32

that they can know that if

38:34

they're really similar, they might've made the

38:36

same tools.

38:36

Man, Leo has some

38:38

really well-thought-out ideas. I know.

38:41

Now let's ask our listeners. What

38:44

kind of tools do you think Neanderthals

38:46

used, and how do you think scientists

38:48

would find out?

38:50

To answer Leo's question,

38:52

I called up Rebecca Ragsykes.

38:55

She's

39:00

an archaeologist and wrote a book about everything

39:02

scientists know about Neanderthals.

39:05

I do a lot of thinking about the past,

39:07

and I love to write about

39:10

what we know about prehistory and Neanderthals.

39:12

Wow, it sounds like she's the perfect person to tell

39:15

us all about Neanderthal tools. Indeed

39:17

she is. And she starts

39:20

all the way back when people were first beginning

39:22

to discover them, around 200 years ago. Lots

39:26

of individual people across Europe and other

39:28

places were sort of going into caves and sort

39:30

of having a scratch about. They wanted to find

39:32

some old bits of animals because people knew that you

39:35

could get old bones out of caves.

39:36

These were the early archaeologists,

39:39

people who were interested in fossils, and

39:41

had a taste for an adventure.

39:44

And apparently, a taste for scratching

39:46

about in caves. Sometimes

39:48

they were finding stone tools. Wait,

39:50

so how did they know they were finding tools and not

39:52

just like rocks? What did

39:55

they look like? These were pieces of stone

39:57

that had been taken apart, what we call

39:59

knapping. and made into tools.

40:02

Napping, like they needed to take a nap

40:04

from making tools. Napping

40:06

is a way of shaping stone,

40:08

and it's actually spelled with K. It's

40:11

not like falling asleep taking a nap, different

40:13

word.

40:14

For early archaeologists, these tools

40:16

were a big find and a big

40:18

mystery. They knew the tools were

40:21

old, but they had no idea who made

40:23

them or when. When the

40:25

first ever Neanderthal site

40:27

that we know was dug, the

40:30

person who dug that up, he understood

40:32

what he was looking at, but he thought that this

40:34

was from people who lived just before the Romans.

40:37

So even though this guy was digging up a Neanderthal

40:39

site, he had no idea that they'd

40:41

made the tools and that they were a

40:43

lot older than Romans.

40:45

Exactly. It took another

40:47

couple of decades for scientists to

40:49

put two and two together, because

40:52

Neanderthal bones and tools

40:55

were usually found far apart

40:57

from each other. We had the stone

40:59

tools in some places, we had the bones

41:01

of Neanderthals in other places, but it wasn't

41:03

until the end of the 19th century

41:06

that those two things happened in the same site.

41:09

The site was a cave in Belgium

41:11

in northern Europe, and it was chock

41:13

full of Neanderthal remains.

41:15

Sounds like an archaeological gold

41:17

mine. It was! They

41:19

pulled out all the bones and tools

41:22

that they could find lying around, and

41:24

then they brought in the explosives.

41:26

Wait, they did what? Archaeologists

41:30

did not excavate in the way that

41:32

we do today. Back in the 18 and

41:35

1900s, archaeologists actually used

41:37

dynamite to dig out and remove things

41:40

quickly. They're like, no, no, it's taking

41:42

too long with my pickaxe, let's blow it up.

41:47

But weren't they worried about blowing up fossils

41:50

or something? That's insane. I mean,

41:52

not to mention blowing up themselves.

41:54

I know, but to their credit, the floors

41:57

were really hard to dig out with a pickaxe.

41:59

If you ever visit a cave and you see stalagmites

42:02

and stalatites hanging down, that's formed by

42:04

water dripping down. It

42:06

makes these deposits and it will form

42:09

entire floors that are concrete hard,

42:12

covering up older layers with

42:14

stuff in them.

42:15

Oh, wow. So the Neanderthal

42:17

remains were just naturally cemented over.

42:20

And so if they wanted to get through these

42:23

flowstone floors is what we call them, they

42:25

blew them up. Yeah, okay. I

42:28

can see getting tired of using a pickaxe

42:30

on a concrete floor. But still,

42:32

I mean, using dynamite seems really extreme,

42:35

not to mention dangerous.

42:36

Definitely. But it was fast.

42:39

You get caves that were dug in 1870

42:42

or something and they cleared

42:44

it in two weeks. And now

42:47

that would take decades of

42:50

work to dig that out. We would never

42:52

do that.

42:53

Whoa. So

42:55

archaeologists are really stretching out that excavation

42:57

time. I bet it's because they really

43:00

dig it. You get it? It's

43:02

a joke.

43:03

I'm sure they do

43:05

dig their jobs. And

43:08

also today's archaeologists take an entirely

43:11

different approach to excavating. So

43:13

the way that we do archaeology now

43:16

is like light years ahead

43:18

in terms of the way that it was done

43:21

at the very beginning of the study of Neanderthals.

43:23

Wait, so they're light years

43:25

ahead of the old archaeologists, but still

43:28

take so long to dig out of sight? I

43:30

don't get it. Don't you get better and faster?

43:32

Well, it takes

43:35

so long because archaeology is

43:37

so much more detailed, especially

43:40

when it comes to tools. The

43:42

big difference now is that we don't

43:45

just collect all the big stuff,

43:47

the nicely shaped tools. We're

43:49

interested in all of the bits that

43:52

came off during that process of production

43:54

because it's been realised over

43:57

many decades that you can

43:59

actually

43:59

reconstruct the process of

44:02

making the objects by refitting

44:05

things back together.

44:06

Wait, wait. So how do you refit

44:08

things back together? Basically, they

44:11

pick up all the tiny chipped away

44:13

pieces of stone from the floors of

44:15

Neanderthal sites and put them

44:17

back together like a jigsaw puzzle.

44:20

What you can do is dig up

44:22

your layer, get all the stone

44:24

objects and you lay them out on a table and

44:26

then you basically, one by one, try

44:29

and fit them back together. Man,

44:30

that would take a ton of patience. You're basically

44:32

just fitting shards of old stone together.

44:34

I know, it sounds extremely

44:37

tedious, but it's also

44:40

worth it because this process

44:42

basically recreates the moment

44:44

when a Neanderthal made the

44:47

tool. When you fit all of those back

44:49

together, you can literally watch the

44:51

process and the decisions that they

44:53

made. Oh

44:54

wow, that sounds really cool.

44:56

I mean, not that I'd want to do that because

44:58

I don't think I have the patience to put together all those pieces

45:01

of rock, but it's cool that other people do. What

45:03

that has shown us is that Neanderthals

45:06

were far, far

45:08

away from just smashing stuff.

45:10

You know, bash, bash, that's not what's going on. So

45:13

what was going on? How did they make those

45:15

tools? They had many

45:17

different really specific

45:20

systematic ways of taking stone apart.

45:22

In some cases, we can watch them switch

45:25

between one method and another on the same

45:27

block of stone as they encounter a problem.

45:30

So they start off doing it one way and they're like, oh no, it's not

45:32

going well. I'm going to switch to this other

45:33

method. Wow. So it's like

45:35

we can read the thoughts of a Neanderthal.

45:38

I know, it's so awesome. And that's

45:40

what those early archaeologists miss,

45:43

by only seeing the big finish tools

45:46

and blowing the place up.

45:47

So

45:50

what we can see by keeping

45:52

all the stuff is so much

45:54

richer than what we would have learned

45:56

if we had only kept the finished article.

45:58

Okay, so that's stone

46:01

tools, but what about the wooden

46:03

tools and the sharpened sticks Leo asked about?

46:06

Yeah, those get a deep look too.

46:08

We basically just study everything to the

46:11

max, so we will zoom in and

46:13

we can identify the different species

46:15

of wood.

46:16

They can even see what parts

46:18

of the tree Neanderthals made the tools

46:21

from. They are choosing

46:23

the parts of the tree that

46:24

are the strongest. They're carving them

46:27

in a way that's not straight down the

46:29

branch, but off at an angle, and

46:31

that makes it stronger too. When it sort of gets

46:33

stuck in an animal, it's not going to shatter.

46:35

Alright, so they weren't just pulling

46:38

down random branches and then making

46:40

them pointy and calling them spears.

46:42

Exactly. The materials

46:44

were carefully chosen and the tools

46:46

were well constructed. So

46:49

where Leo was talking about wooden spears

46:51

and things like this, what we do know

46:53

is that Neanderthals sometimes made

46:56

what we call composite tools. So that just

46:58

means tools made of more than one part.

47:00

Archaeologists think these parts might

47:03

have been bound together by plants or

47:05

animal tissue. Those haven't

47:07

been preserved, but what has been

47:09

bound is Neanderthal glue.

47:12

Wait,

47:13

glue? Like Elmer's from

47:15

the bottle? Not from the bottle.

47:18

We can see that they made glues.

47:21

So little lumps of stuff,

47:24

just little smears that are stuck on

47:26

stone tools.

47:27

That's amazing. I mean, I don't know

47:29

how to make glue, so how did they?

47:32

Well, archaeologists analyzed the chemicals

47:35

in those little lumps and smears and

47:38

discovered it used to be very

47:40

sticky. We can say that Neanderthals

47:43

knew how to make glue from birch bark,

47:45

which requires cooking it basically

47:48

for a considerable amount of time.

47:49

Wow, I mean, you'd have to have a lot

47:51

of patience to make this stuff, but honestly,

47:54

not as much as putting together a stone tool.

47:56

For

47:58

sure. And Neanderthals were making

48:00

other tools that weren't for hunting.

48:03

There are other wooden objects as well, digging

48:05

sticks, which may not sound as

48:07

exciting as spheres, but actually they

48:09

are super important for everyday

48:12

life.

48:12

So wait, let me guess,

48:15

a digging stick is a stick

48:17

that you use to dig?

48:19

You are correct. Meandertals

48:22

wouldn't dig with any old stick, they

48:24

made special ones for that. Certainly

48:26

what we see is even when they're making digging

48:28

sticks, they make the same really careful

48:30

choices about the kind of tree and

48:33

how they actually make that tool. So sometimes

48:35

they use very strong hard woods,

48:38

which are really difficult to carve, and

48:41

then they will use fire to help

48:43

them soften the wood up and actually carve that

48:45

off. I can almost see the meandertals

48:48

around the fire, like just boiling glue, softening

48:51

sticks, having a good time, hanging

48:54

out. Yeah, we can actually

48:56

know that they did these things. These

48:59

tools really give us a picture into

49:01

the past.

49:02

But Leo mentioned studying other living

49:04

species with similar brain sizes to find

49:06

out how meandertals might have made tools.

49:09

So

49:09

is that a thing? Yeah, this was

49:11

a really cool thing that Leo said,

49:14

because it is really close to what

49:16

we do and the way that we've worked over

49:18

decades.

49:19

Archaeologists and primatologists, or

49:21

people who study primates, have observed

49:24

other primates like chimps and bonobos

49:26

making tools in the wild, but

49:28

they lack some important skills. They

49:31

don't seem to have the same

49:33

understanding of geometry

49:35

in order to be able to

49:37

come anywhere near to the more

49:40

complicated methods of making stotals

49:42

that meandertals had mastered.

49:45

Neandertal tools show us that meandertals

49:47

were more advanced than we often give

49:49

them credit for, and we know

49:52

that thanks to slow, careful

49:54

archaeology. This is what's really

49:56

fascinating about how modern archaeology works,

49:58

that we apply...

49:59

our clever scientific techniques.

50:02

And sometimes we find things that are completely unexpected

50:04

and they open up a complete other window

50:07

onto what Neanderthals were up to that we

50:09

would never have known before.

50:11

So no more blowing

50:13

up caves, even though it was probably

50:15

cool to watch. Exactly. What's

50:18

hiding in the dirt has showed us that Neanderthals

50:21

are more like humans than we thought.

50:23

I would say that they are another

50:26

kind of human. They're another way

50:28

of being a human. They were

50:31

different in some ways, but there's

50:34

so much

50:34

more shared between

50:36

us than what makes us different.

50:46

Wow, it looks like our cave adventure has come

50:48

to an end. Thank you for joining me on

50:50

the last Tumble Road Trip of the summer. Lindsay

50:53

and I will be back on September 15th for

50:55

the start of season nine. In the meantime,

50:57

you can pledge just $1 a month

50:59

on Patreon or Spotify

51:01

for our collection of bonus episodes. Thanks

51:04

to all the scientists we met on this road trip. Sarah

51:07

Roberson-Lentz is our editor and made all the

51:09

episode art. Lindsay Patterson wrote

51:11

the original episodes. Elliot Hajaj

51:13

wrote the interludes and produced this road

51:15

trip episode. And I'm Marshall Escamilla

51:18

and I made all the music you heard. Tumble

51:20

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