Browsing by Author "Brain, C. K."

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The importance of Nama Group sediments and fossils to the debate about animal origins
(Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research, 1997) Brain, C. K.
The purpose of this review is to draw attention to the contribution that Nama sediments and fossils have made, and potentially can make, to the ongoing debate about metazoan origins. Two important features of this debate concern the nature and systematic position of the late Proterozoic "Ediacaran" fauna as well as the reasons for the sudden appearance in the fossil record of representatives of almost all known animal phyla, during the Early-Middle Cambrian radiation. An additional vexing question is the reason for the apparent absence of preserved representatives of ancestral metazoan lineages in Proterozoic sediments, despite the fact that molecular evidence shows that such lineages had a long his tory, prior to Cambrian times. Nama fossils and their enclosing sediments have made crucial contributions to this debate and will surely continue to do so in the future.
Presidential address: taphonomy as an aid to African palaeontology
(Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research, 1981) Brain, C. K.
Palaeontology has its roots in both the earth and life sciences. Its usefulness to geology comes from the light which the understanding of fossils may throw on the stratigraphic relationships of sediments, or the presence of economic deposits such as coal or oil. In biology, the study of fossils has the same objectives as does the study of living animals or plants and such objectives are generally reached in a series of steps which may be set out as follows.
Swartkrans as a case study in African cave taphonomy
(Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research, 1980) Brain, C. K.
By taphonomy is meant the systematic study of death assemblages of once-living things in this case of vertebrate animals. Such study may have various aims but in the present instance my objective has been the interpretation of bone assemblages in the Swartkrans cave to throw light on such topics as: 1. the ways in which bones found their way to the cave; 2. the nature of the animal communities which contributed bones to the assemblages and the kind of environment in which the communities lived; 3. the behaviour of the hominids and other animals whose bones form part of the fossil assemblage. Swartkrans, though not a particularly large cave, is one of considerable complexity and can be used as a case study to illuminate several principles in African cave taphonomy. Three of these principles are discussed.