Volume 54: 2019–2020

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The Younger Dryas interval at Wonderkrater (South Africa) in the context of a platinum anomaly
(Evolutionary Studies Institute, 2019-10-02) Thackeray, J. Francis; Scott, Louis; Pieterse, P
Wonderkrater in the Limpopo Province in South Africa is a late Quaternary archaeological site with peat deposits extending back more than 30 000 years before the present. Palaeoclimatic indices based on multivariate analysis of pollen spectra reflect a decline in temperature identifiable with the Younger Dryas (YD). A prominent spike in platinum is documented in aWonderkrater sample (5614) with a mean date of 12 744 cal yr BP using a Bayesian model, preceding the onset of the YD cooling event. The YD platinum spike at Wonderkrater is the first to be observed in Africa in the southern hemisphere, supplementing new discoveries from Patagonia in South America, in addition to more than 25 sites with such platinum anomalies in the northern hemisphere. The observations from South Africa serve to strengthen ongoing assessments of the controversial YD Impact Hypothesis, whereby it is proposed that a meteorite or cometary impact contributed to a decline in temperature, associated inter alia with dispersion of atmospheric dust, mammalian extinctions and cultural changes.