London - To explore the underground chamber where the bones were left, scientists advertised on Facebook for “skinny individuals” with “scientific credentials and caving experience”.
Of the 60 applicants, a crack team of six petite young women were hired and promptly dubbed the “underground astronauts”.
Tackling fissures less than 8 inches wide, team member Marina Elliott spoke of “some of the most difficult and dangerous conditions ever encountered in the search for human origins”.
“The first time I went to the excavation site I likened it to the feeling that Howard Carter must have had when he opened Tutankhamun’s tomb – that you are in a very confined space and then it opens up and all of a sudden all you can see are all these wonderful things - it was incredible,” she told the BBC.
One of the fissures is known as Superman’s Crawl — after the super hero “flying” posture that needs to be adopted to get through it.
The bones could then only be reached after tackling another narrow chute – which drops 30ft to the Dinaledi Chamber. Study leader Professor Lee Berger said the cavers were “willing to quite literally risk their lives on a daily basis”.
The skeletons came to light after Prof Berger was contacted by two cavers who found the bones and took pictures of them while potholing in 2013. A friend recognised the significance of the discovery and contacted the expert.
Daily Mail