Hominins from South Africa
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Art in the Stone Age Terminology
Art in the Stone Age Terminology ● Paleolithic- (Greek) ○ Paleo-Old ○ Lithos-Stone. ○ 40,000-9,000BCE ○ Characteristics, Hunter Gatherer, Caves. Migration ● Mesolithic, ○ Meso-Middle ○ Lithos- Stone Age ○ 10,000-5,000 bce ○ Characteristics, Beginnings of Cities, Dog Domestication, Transition to agricultural and animal domestication ● Neolithic, ○ Neo-New ○ Lithos-Stone ○ 8,000-2300 BCE ○ Development of Cities, Animal Husbandry Herding, Agriculture, People Began to stay in one place Mistakes in Art History The saying Goes.. “History is Written by the victors.” Niccolo Machiavelli Mercator Map Projection. https://youtu.be/KUF_Ckv8HbE http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2016/01/21/463835225/discovery-of- ancient-massacre-suggests-war-predated- settlements Radio Carbon Dating https://youtu.be/54e5Bz7m3do A process Archaeologists use among others to estimate how long ago an artifact was made. Makapansgat Face Pebble resembling a face, Makapansgat, ca. 3,000,000 bce. This pebble of one of the earliest examples of representation of the human form. Apollo 11 Cave Animal facing left, from the Apollo 11 Cave, Namibia, ca. 23,000bce. Charcoal on stone, 5”x4.25”. State Museum of Namibia, Windhoek. Scientists between 1969-1972 scientists working in the Apollo 11 Cave in Namibia found seven fragments of painted stone plaques, transportable. The approximate date of the charcoal from the archeological layer containing the Namibian plaques is 23,000bce. Hohlenstein-Stadel Human with feline (Lion?) head, from Hohlenstein-Stadel Germany, ca 40,000- 35,000BCE Appox 12” in length this artifact was carved from ivory from a mammoth tusk This object was originally thought to be of 30,000bce, was pushed back in time due to additional artifacts found later on the same excavation layer. -
The Palaeontology of Haas Gat a Preliminary Account
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Wits Institutional Repository on DSPACE Palaeont. afr., 28, 29-33 (1991) THE PALAEONTOLOGY OF HAAS GAT A PRELIMINARY ACCOUNT by A.W. Keyser Geological Survey, Private Bag X112, Pretoria 0001, Republic of South Africa ABSTRACT Haasgat is a cave on the steep western slope of the upper reach of the Witwatersrand Spruit, on the farm Leeuwenkloof 480 lQ, in the Brits District. It was heavily mined for flowstone (calcite). The cave contains a deposit offossiliferous cave silt and breccia that was partially removed by the miners and dumped on the steep slopes of the valley. The original entrance was probably a shallow inclined pit, leading into an upper chamber and then into the preserved depository. Both porcupines and carnivores served as accumulating agents for the bones. Fossils of the primates Parapapio and Cercopifhecoides, hyaena (Chasmaporthetes), fox, porcupines, several species of bovids and two species of Hyrax have been recovered. An insufficient number of fossils have been prepared to determine the age of the deposit with certainty. The deposit was provisionally thought to be of Pliocene age because of the occurrence of Parapapio. At this stage it would be unwise to correlate this occurrence with any other caves in this age range. It is concluded that the cave silts were deposited by flash floods, under a wetter climatic regime than that of the present. MAIN FEATURES AND ORIGIN OF THE DEPOSIT Haasgat is the remains of what once was a more extensive cave on the farm Leeuwenkloof 48 JQ in the Brits District. -
The Partial Skeleton Stw 431 from Sterkfontein – Is It Time to Rethink the Plio-Pleistocene Hominin Diversity in South Africa?
doie-pub 10.4436/JASS.98020 ahead of print JASs Reports doi: 10.4436/jass.89003 Journal of Anthropological Sciences Vol. 98 (2020), pp. 73-88 The partial skeleton StW 431 from Sterkfontein – Is it time to rethink the Plio-Pleistocene hominin diversity in South Africa? Gabriele A. Macho1, Cinzia Fornai 2, Christine Tardieu3, Philip Hopley4, Martin Haeusler5 & Michel Toussaint6 1) Earth and Planetary Science, Birkbeck, University of London, London WC1E 7HX, England; School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, England email: [email protected]; [email protected] 2) Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland; Department of Anthropology, University of Vienna, Althanstraße 14, 1090 Vienna, Austria 3) Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, 55 rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, France 4) Earth and Planetary Science, Birkbeck, University of London, London WC1E 7HX; Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, England 5) Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland 6) retired palaeoanthropologist, Belgium email: [email protected] Summary - The discovery of the nearly complete Plio-Pleistocene skeleton StW 573 Australopithecus prometheus from Sterkfontein Member 2, South Africa, has intensified debates as to whether Sterkfontein Member 4 contains a hominin species other than Australopithecus africanus. For example, it has recently been suggested that the partial skeleton StW 431 should be removed from the A. africanus hypodigm and be placed into A. prometheus. Here we re-evaluate this latter proposition, using published information and new comparative data. Although both StW 573 and StW 431 are apparently comparable in their arboreal (i.e., climbing) and bipedal adaptations, they also show significant morphological differences. -
Teaching Materials Associated with Module 1 Taung Child
Teaching Materials Associated With Module 1 Taung Child: - Discovered in 1924 by Australian anatomy professor Raymond Dart - Among the first human fossils to be found in Africa - Dated to between 2.5 and 3 million years ago - Based on dental eruption patterns, Taung child’s age at death was ~3.3 years old - It is thought that an eagle killed Taung child based on what appear to be talon puncture marks on the skull Discovery of Taung Child: - Dart’s discovery: “Australian anatomy professor Raymond Dart was adjusting the collar of his dress suit in preparation for a friend’s wedding when a box, shipped from a limestone quarry near Taung, South Africa, arrived at the doorstep of his Johannesburg home in November 1924. Dart abandoned his collar to dig through the package’s contents—all the while ignoring the grumblings of his wife and the groom, who were anxious to begin the wedding ceremony. Inside the box, he found a fossilized mold of a brain and a matching child’s skull partially buried in stone. Dart quickly realized the significance of the finding, and by February 1925 had published an article in Nature identifying a new species: Australopithecus africanus. The 2.5-million-year-old “Taung Child” or “Taung Baby,” as Dart called it, was the first member of the Australopithecus genus discovered, and it challenged contemporary ideas about human evolution.” – The Scientist Magazine - This can be considered “armchair paleoanthropology” as Dart did not participate in the excavation of Taung child himself. Instead, he was sent the samples and completed the analysis from Johannesburg. -
Speleology and Magnetobiostratigraphic Chronology of the Buffalo Cave Fossil Site, Makapansgat, South Africa ⁎ Andy I.R
Quaternary Research 66 (2006) 233–245 www.elsevier.com/locate/yqres Speleology and magnetobiostratigraphic chronology of the Buffalo Cave fossil site, Makapansgat, South Africa ⁎ Andy I.R. Herries a,b, , Kaye E. Reed c, Kevin L. Kuykendall d, Alf G. Latham e a Geomagnetism Laboratory, University of Liverpool, L69 7ZE, UK b Palaeoanthropology Research Group, School of Medical Sciences, University of New South Wales, Kensington, Sydney 2052, Australia c Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85281, USA d Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, UK e Department of Archaeology, Hartley Building, University of Liverpool, L69 3BX, UK Received 30 September 2004 Available online 12 June 2006 Abstract Speleological, stratigraphic, paleomagnetic and faunal data is presented for the Buffalo Cave fossil site in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. Speleothems and clastic deposits were sampled for paleomagnetic and mineral magnetic analysis from the northern part of the site, where stratigraphic relationships could be more easily defined and a magnetostratigraphy could therefore be developed for the site. This is also where excavations recovered the fossil material described. A comparison of the east and South African first and last appearance data with the Buffalo Cave fauna was then used to constrain the magnetostratigraphy to produce a more secure age for the site. The magnetostratigraphy showed a change from normal to reversed polarity in the basal speleothems followed by a short normal polarity period in the base of the clastic deposits and a slow change to reversed directions for the remainder of the sequence. The biochronology suggested an optimal age range of between 1.0 Ma and 600,000 yr based on faunal correlation with eastern and southern Africa. -
Dietary Change Among Hominins and Cercopithecids in Ethiopia During the Early Pliocene
Dietary change among hominins and cercopithecids in Ethiopia during the early Pliocene Naomi E. Levina,1, Yohannes Haile-Selassieb, Stephen R. Frostc, and Beverly Z. Saylord aDepartment of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218; bPhysical Anthropology Department, The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland, OH 44106; cDepartment of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403; and dDepartment of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106 Edited by David Pilbeam, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, and approved August 4, 2015 (received for review December 31, 2014) 13 The incorporation of C4 resources into hominin diet signifies in- signatures and that the δ C value of tooth enamel reflects the creased dietary breadth within hominins and divergence from the carbon isotope composition of an animal’s diet (5). Fossil teeth dietary patterns of other great apes. Morphological evidence in- from the Woranso-Mille paleontological study area are well- dicates that hominin diet became increasingly diverse by 4.2 mil- suited to fill the temporal gap in the isotopic record of hominin lion years ago but may not have included large proportions of C4 diet because they are part of a record of Pliocene mammalian foods until 800 thousand years later, given the available isotopic fossils that spans 3.76–3.2 Ma (6–11). The hominin fossils from evidence. Here we use carbon isotope data from early to mid Woranso-Mille include those that are morphologically inter- Pliocene hominin and cercopithecid fossils from Woranso-Mille mediate between Au. anamensis and Au. afarensis, some that are (central Afar, Ethiopia) to constrain the timing of this dietary definitively Au. -
Duchamp Did Not Invent the Readymade. in Fact, It May Have Been the First Human Art Form
Duchamp Did Not Invent the Readymade. In Fact, It May Have Been the First Human Art Form Consider the case of the Makapansgat Pebble. Ben Davis, April 19, 2018 Installation view of the Makapansgat Pebble in "First Sculpture." Image courtesy Ben Davis. When you think of the oldest art, in all likelihood, you think of the cave paintings of Altamira or Lascaux, with their spooky, frozen, frolicking bison and stags. These images are to art history what the opening scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey is to material culture in general: the mythic starting point for a long, mystery -shrouded evolution. This is part of why I find “First Sculpture: Handaxe to Figure Stone” at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas so cool. It smashes that narrative like an ape bashing a skull with a bone hammer. The show, the product of a team-up between artist Tony Berlant and anthropologist Thomas Wynn, claims to be the first museum exhibition to focus on the specifically aesthetic appreciation of these particular ancient objects. Among other things, “F irst Sculpture” contains a selection of the “Boxgrove Handaxes,” stone instruments found in England that are believed to be the first group of artifacts that identifiably come from the same maker. Which is a brain-bender in and of itself—to recall that, somewhere in the swamp of prehistoric time, there existed a first instance when identifiable, individual ways of making came into focus. The Boxgrove Handaxes on view at the Nasher Sculpture Park in “First Sculpture.” Image courtesy Ben Davis. But the teardrop-shaped handaxes are not, actually, what most interests me about this show. -
The Stable Isotope Setting of Australopithecus Sediba at Malapa
Research Article Malapa cave stable isotopes Page 1 of 9 The stable isotope setting of Australopithecus AUTHORS: sediba at Malapa, South Africa Emily Holt1 Paul Dirks1,2,3 13 18 Christa Placzek1 We report δ C and δ O results from carbonate-cemented cave sediments at Malapa in South Africa. Lee Berger2 The sediments were deposited during a short-period magnetic reversal at 1.977±0.003 Ma, immediately preceding deposition of Facies D sediments that contain the type fossils of Australopithecus sediba. Values AFFILIATIONS: of δ13C range between -5.65 and -2.09 with an average of -4.58±0.54‰ (Vienna Pee Dee Belemnite, 1Department of Geosciences, VPDB) and values of δ18O range between -6.14 and -3.84 with an average of -4.93±0.44‰ (VPDB). College of Science and Despite signs of diagenetic alteration from metastable aragonite to calcite, the Malapa isotope values are Engineering, James Cook University, Queensland, Australia similar to those obtained in two previous studies in South Africa for the same relative time period. Broadly, 13 2Evolutionary Studies Institute, the Malapa δ C values provide constraints on the palaeovegetation at Malapa. Because of the complex DST/NRF Centre of Excellence in nature of the carbonate cements and mixed mineralogy in the samples, our estimates of vegetation type Palaeosciences, University of the (C -dominant) must be regarded as preliminary only. However, the indication of a mainly C landscape is in Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 4 4 contrast to the reported diet of A. sediba, and suggests a diverse environment involving both grassland and South Africa riparian woodland. -
Renewed Investigations at Taung; 90 Years After the Discovery of Australopithecus Africanus
Renewed investigations at Taung; 90 years after the discovery of Australopithecus africanus Brian F. Kuhn1*, Andy I.R. Herries2,1, Gilbert J. Price3, Stephanie E. Baker1, Philip Hopley4,5, Colin Menter1 & Matthew V. Caruana1 1Centre for Anthropological Research (CfAR), House 10, Humanities Research Village, University of Johannesburg, Bunting Road Campus, Auckland Park, 2092, South Africa 2The Australian Archaeomagnetism Laboratory, Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Melbourne Campus, Bundoora, 3086, VIC, Australia 3School of Earth Sciences, University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia 4Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, London, WC1E 7HX, U.K. 5Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, U.K. Received 10 July 2015. Accepted 15 July 2016 2015 marked the 90th anniversary of the description of the first fossil of Australopithecus africanus, commonly known as the Taung Child, which was unearthed during blasting at the Buxton-Norlim Limeworks (referred to as the BNL) 15 km SE of the town of Taung, South Africa. Subsequently, this site has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site on the basis of its importance to southern African palaeoanthropology. Some other sites such as Equus Cave and Black Earth Cave have also been investigated; but the latter not since the 1940s. These sites indicate that the complex of palaeontological and archaeological localities at the BNL preserve a time sequence spanning the Pliocene to the Holocene. The relationship of these various sites and how they fit into the sequence of formation of tufa, landscapes and caves at the limeworks have also not been investigated or discussed in detail since Peabody’s efforts in the 1940s. -
Taung Child's Skull and Brain Not Human-Like in Expansion
Taung Child's skull and brain not human- like in expansion 25 August 2014 The results have been published online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) on Monday, 25 August 2014. The Taung Child has historical and scientific importance in the fossil record as the first and best example of early hominin brain evolution, and theories have been put forward that it exhibits key cranial adaptations found in modern human infants and toddlers. To test the ancientness of this evolutionary adaptation, Dr Kristian J. Carlson, Senior Researcher from the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand, and colleagues, Professor Ralph L. Holloway from Columbia University and Douglas C. Broadfield from Florida Atlantic University, performed an in silico dissection of the Taung fossil using high- resolution computed tomography. Taung child – Facial forensic reconstruction by Arc- "A recent study has described the roughly 3 million- Team, Antrocon NPO, Cicero Moraes, University of Padua. Credit: Cicero Moraes/CC BY-SA 3.0 year-old fossil, thought to have belonged to a 3 to 4-year-old, as having a persistent metopic suture and open anterior fontanelle, two features that facilitate post-natal brain growth in human infants The Taung Child, South Africa's premier hominin when their disappearance is delayed," said discovered 90 years ago by Wits University Carlson. Professor Raymond Dart, never ceases to transform and evolve the search for our collective origins. By subjecting the skull of the first australopith discovered to the latest technologies in the Wits University Microfocus X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) facility, researchers are now casting doubt on theories that Australopithecus africanus shows the same cranial adaptations found in modern human infants and toddlers – in effect disproving current support for the idea that this early hominin shows infant brain development in the prefrontal region similar to that of modern humans. -
Evidence of Termite Foraging by Swartkrans Early Hominids
Evidence of termite foraging by Swartkrans early hominids Lucinda R. Backwell*† and Francesco d’Errico‡§ *Palaeo-Anthropology Unit for Research and Exploration, Department of Palaeontology, Palaeo-Anthropology Research Group, and †Department of Anatomical Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, Wits, 2050, Johannesburg, South Africa; and ‡Institut de Pre´histoire et de Ge´ologie du Quaternaire, Unite´Mixte de Recherche 5808 du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Baˆtiment 18, Avenue des Faculte´s, 33405 Talence, France Communicated by Erik Trinkaus, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, November 20, 2000 (received for review September 14, 2000) Previous studies have suggested that modified bones from the body surface activated silicone paste for molds, and Araldite M Lower Paleolithic sites of Swartkrans and Sterkfontein in South resin and HY 956 Hardener for casts) was used to replicate the Africa represent the oldest known bone tools and that they were 68 Swartkrans (SKX) and 1 Sterkfontein (SE) purported bone used by Australopithecus robustus to dig up tubers. Macroscopic tools, and optical and scanning electron microscopy was used to and microscopic analysis of the wear patterns on the purported identify their surface modifications. Microscopic images of the bone tools, pseudo bone tools produced naturally by known transparent resin replicas were digitized at 40ϫ magnification on taphonomic processes, and experimentally used bone tools con- a sample of 18 fossils from Swartkrans. The orientation and firm the anthropic origin of the modifications. However, our dimension of all visible striations were recorded by using MI- analysis suggests that these tools were used to dig into termite CROWARE image analysis software (14). -
A New Star Rising: Biology and Mortuary Behaviour of Homo Naledi
Commentary Biology and mortuary behaviour of Homo naledi Page 1 of 4 A new star rising: Biology and mortuary behaviour AUTHOR: of Homo naledi Patrick S. Randolph-Quinney1,2 AFFILIATIONS: September 2015 saw the release of two papers detailing the taxonomy1, and geological and taphonomic2 context 1School of Anatomical Sciences, of a newly identified hominin species, Homo naledi – naledi meaning ‘star’ in Sesotho. Whilst the naming and Faculty of Health Sciences, description of a new part of our ancestral lineage has not been an especially rare event in recent years,3-7 the University of the Witwatersrand presentation of Homo naledi to the world is unique for two reasons. Firstly, the skeletal biology, which presents Medical School, Johannesburg, a complex mixture of primitive and derived traits, and, crucially, for which almost every part of the skeleton is South Africa represented – a first for an early hominin species. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, this taxon provides 2Evolutionary Studies Institute, evidence for ritualistic complex behaviour, involving the deliberate disposal of the dead. Centre for Excellence in Palaeosciences, University of the The initial discovery was made in September 2013 in a cave system known as Rising Star in the Cradle of Humankind Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, World Heritage Site, some 50 km outside of Johannesburg. Whilst amateur cavers had been periodically visiting the South Africa chamber for a number of years, the 2013 incursion was the first to formally investigate the system for the fossil remains of early hominins. The exploration team comprised Wits University scientists and volunteer cavers, and CORRESPONDENCE TO: was assembled by Lee Berger of the Evolutionary Studies Institute, who advocated that volunteer cavers would use Patrick Randolph-Quinney their spelunking skills in the search for new hominin-bearing fossil sites within the Cradle of Humankind.