Taxonomic and taphonomic interpretations of newly excavated in situ GD 2 faunal remains at Gondolin

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dc.contributor.authorEngelbrecht, Micke
dc.contributor.authorVal, Aurore
dc.contributor.authorKibii, Job M.
dc.contributor.authorSteininger, Christine
dc.date.accessioned2024-01-22T07:51:42Z
dc.date.available2024-01-22T07:51:42Z
dc.date.issued2024-01
dc.departmentEvolutionary Studies Institute ESI
dc.description.abstractGondolin is one of the fossil-bearing karstic localities in the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa. Periodic excavations of calcified and decalcified sediments at several loci (GD 1,GD2 andGDA) over the last few decades have yielded a sizeable sample of Plio-Pleistocene fauna, including two hominin teeth from ex situ deposits. In 2015, renewed excavations were conducted at the GD 2 locality, which consists of decalcified in situ deposits, in order to shed more light on the site’s complex formation processes as well as to try finding new hominin material from a stratigraphically secured context. While these excavations did not yield any hominin material, abundant macrovertebrate remains were recovered. This paper presents the taxonomic composition and taphonomic characteristics of this new faunal assemblage. The occurrence of Equus sp. as well as the extinct species Metridiochoerus andrewsi and Hystrix makapanensis places the assemblage in a depositional age bracket of 2.33–1.78 Ma, which is consistent with ages already proposed forGD2. No primate material was recovered. The assemblage displays a taxonomic and bodyweight bias towards small-bodied (size classes I and II) bovids. The taphonomic characteristics of the bovid remains suggest the selective action of a leopard-like carnivore and while there is no direct evidence that the locality was used as a hyaena den, secondary scavenging by hyaenids cannot be excluded. Porcupines played an ancillary role in the bone accumulation. We performed intra- and inter-site taxonomic and taphonomic comparisons between this faunal sample and fossil assemblages from previously excavated localities at Gondolin (GD 1, GD 2 and GD A), as well as from other Paranthropus robustus-bearing sites in the Cradle of Humankind. These comparisons indicate that this new sample closely resembles the faunal assemblage previously collected from in situ calcified sediments at the GD 2 locality, in terms of species composition, bovid size class distribution, carnivore to ungulate ratio, and general taphonomic characterization.
dc.description.librarianJNC2023
dc.description.sponsorshipPAST, the Palaeotological Scientific Trust
dc.facultyFaculty of Science
dc.identifier.issn2410-4418
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10539/37327
dc.journal.titlePalaeontologia africana
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherThe Evolutionary Studies Institute
dc.rightsCopyright 2024 the Authors. This is an open-access article published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License (CC BY4.0). To view a copy of the license, please visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
dc.schoolLibrary
dc.subjectPlio-Pleistocene
dc.subjectSouth Africa
dc.subjectCradle of Humankind
dc.subjectHystrix makapanensis
dc.subjectMetriodiochoerus andrewsi
dc.subjectParanthropus robustus
dc.titleTaxonomic and taphonomic interpretations of newly excavated in situ GD 2 faunal remains at Gondolin
dc.typeArticle
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