A Reevaluation of the Paleoenvironmental
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CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by University of Tennessee, Knoxville: Trace University of Tennessee, Knoxville Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 8-2005 A Reevaluation of the Paleoenvironmental Reconstructions Associated with Homo erectus from Java, Indonesia, Based on the Functional Morphology of Fossil Bovid Astragali Daniel Charles Weinand University of Tennessee - Knoxville Recommended Citation Weinand, Daniel Charles, "A Reevaluation of the Paleoenvironmental Reconstructions Associated with Homo erectus from Java, Indonesia, Based on the Functional Morphology of Fossil Bovid Astragali. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2005. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/2315 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Daniel Charles Weinand entitled "A Reevaluation of the Paleoenvironmental Reconstructions Associated with Homo erectus from Java, Indonesia, Based on the Functional Morphology of Fossil Bovid Astragali." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Anthropology. Andrew Kramer, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Lyle Konigsberg, Walter Klippel, Sally Horn Accepted for the Council: Dixie L. Thompson Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Daniel Charles Weinand entitled, “A Reevaluation of the Paleoenvironmental Reconstructions Associated with Homo erectus from Java, Indonesia, Based on the Functional Morphology of Fossil Bovid Astragali.” I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Anthropology. Andrew Kramer Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Lyle Konigsberg Walter Klippel Sally Horn Accepted for the Council: Anne Mayhew Vice Chancellor and Dean of Graduate Studies (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) A REEVALUATION OF THE PALEOENVIRONMENTAL RECONSTRUCTIONS ASSOCIATED WITH HOMO ERECTUS FROM JAVA, INDONESIA, BASED ON THE FUNCTIONAL MORPHOLOGY OF FOSSIL BOVID ASTRAGALI A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee Daniel Charles Weinand August 2005 Copyright 2005 by Daniel Charles Weinand All Rights Reserved ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank all of the people who have helped me to complete this research and to attain my Doctor of Philosophy degree in Anthropology. I would especially like to thank my major professor, Dr. Andrew Kramer. The opportunities he has provided me have taken me down research avenues I never thought possible. More importantly, his continued encouragement and support allowed me to maintain the persistence necessary to explore them. I would also like to thank Dr. Walter Klippel, without whose faith in my zooarchaeological skills would have made the attainment of this anthropology degree impossible. I also appreciate the assistance of Drs. Lyle Konigsberg and Sally Horn and their constructive critiques of the work. I would also like to thank the University and the Anthropology department for their financial support in helping to complete this research. The completion of this work would not have been possible without the assistance of the various museums and their associated personnel. I would like to thank all of the mammal curators who permitted me access to the modern collections, including Mitchi Schulenberg of the Field Museum, Linda Spence of the Smithsonian Institution, and Jean Spence of the American Museum. I would also like to thank all of the staff of the Naturalis Museum, The Netherlands. John de Vos provided me with hours (weeks) of moral support while examining the bovids of the Dubois Collection. His enthusiasm for paleontology is contagious, indeed. I also appreciate the assistance of Reinier van Zelst for granting me access day in and day out to ‘my prison’ during my month’s stay in Leiden. Thanks are also due to Chris Smeenk for access to the modern mammal collection of the Naturalis Museum and to Lars van den Hoek Ostende for his encouragement and lunchtime conversations. I would also like to thank David DeGusta iii of the Laboratory for Human Evolutionary Studies, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, and Department of Integrative Biology, University of California for sharing his measurements of the African bovid astragali and granting permission to use them. The statistics used in this study are the result of the assistance of several people. I would like to thank the University of Tennessee Statistical Consulting Center for their initial assistance with the SPSS program. I would also like to thank Dr. Lyle Konigsberg, again, for making me aware of the R statistical package and the rpart program. Special thanks are necessary to Franklin Damann for his patience and assistance in helping to make these programs make sense. I would also like to thank all of my friends, students, and colleagues at the University of Tennessee. They have made the last several years much more tolerable. I would particularly like to thank Art Durband for his friendship, without which would have lead to this endeavor being scrapped several times. I guess we will have to save those plane tickets to Guatemala (at least for the time being). Thanks also to all of my friends outside of the University environment. You all know how much you mean to me. I would now like to thank my family, especially my parents. Their continued commitment to seeing that I achieve the goals I set is an inspiration. I am particularly thankful for the work ethic they have instilled in me. I would also like to thank my brother, Scott. You set the bar very high. Thanks are also due to all of my extended family. It is one thing for your own parents to support you, but to experience all of the love you show me is deeply overwhelming. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Laura. There are not enough words to explain what your love has meant to me during all of this. “For life or longer,” my dear. iv ABSTRACT The Middle Pleistocene sites of Trinil and Kedung Brubus, Java, Indonesia have provided extensive faunal remains that are classified as part of a larger biostratigraphic framework. Paleoenvironmental reconstructions, associated with early hominids on Java, have been constructed based on the composition and perceived shared habitat preference of fossil and modern animal taxa. Research of the African members of the family Bovidae has shown that a more effective way of examining past environments is through the study of morphological traits that are characteristic of functional adaptations to different environmental conditions. This research represents the successful extension of this method by testing several parametric and nonparametric statistical models for habitat prediction based on bovid astragali from Southeast Asia. The results of the fossil analysis indicate the paleoenvironment at the Trinil site (ca. 1 Ma) was dominated by densely vegetated river valleys and upland forests, broken by open grasslands. These grasslands probably expanded during the period associated with the Kedung Brubus locality, approximately 0.8 Ma. This environmental change, coupled with the immigration of new species, was important to the appearance and future evolutionary success of Homo erectus during the Middle Pleistocene. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................................1 Chapter 2: Background..................................................................................................8 Faunal succession for Java................................................................................................8 Satir Fauna............................................................................................................8 Ci Saat Fauna ........................................................................................................9 Trinil H.K. Fauna................................................................................................10 Kedung Brubus Fauna.........................................................................................11 Ngandong Fauna.................................................................................................11 Punung Fauna......................................................................................................12 Wajak Fauna.......................................................................................................12 The Trinil and Kedung Brubus sites ...............................................................................13 The Fossil Bovidae of Java.............................................................................................15 Chapter 3: Materials and