[2] In 2015, fossils found there two years prior were determined to be a previously unknown extinct species of hominin named Homo naledi.

[2][5] 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 fell from the roof sometime in the distant past.

This block is the so-called Dragon's Back, so named because the climbing route appears to progress from the tail to the head along the spiked spine of a mythical beast.

[2][5] The appearance of limited fossilisation initially led the explorers to think the bones were from the last caver into the chamber, who had subsequently never made it back out alive.

[11][12] The excavation team enlisted six paleoanthropologists, all of whom were women, who could pass through an opening only 18 cm (7 inches) wide to access the Dinaledi Chamber.

[10][13][14] Those chosen were Hannah Morris, Marina Elliott, Becca Peixotto, Alia Gurtov, Lindsay Eaves, and Elen Feuerriegel.

[5][11][21][22] On 20 February 2014, Rick Hunter, Lee Berger, John Hawks, Alia Gurtov, and Pedro Boshoff returned to Rising Star to evaluate a second potential site.

The site, designated UW-102 (or U.W.102, aka Lesedi Chamber),[9] was found by cavers Rick Hunter and Steve Tucker on the last day of the first Rising Star Expedition, and limited excavation began in April 2014.

[28][29] A study involving the statistical reconstruction of hominin evolutionary trees from skull and tooth measurements, originally indicated that the most likely age for H. naledi was 912 kya.

Berger goes on to note, "If confirmed, the antiquity, intentionality, and authorship of the reported markings will have profound archaeological implications, as such behaviors are otherwise widely considered to be unique to our species, Homo sapiens."

It comprises an area of 250 × 150 m of mapped passageways situated in the core of a gently west dipping (17°) open fold, and it is stratigraphically bound to a 15–20 m-thick, stromatolitic dolomite horizon in the lower parts of the Monte Christo Formation.