Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T09:26:00.483Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

New Isotopic and Sedimentological Measurements of the Thabaseek Deposits (South Africa) and the Dating of the Taung Hominid

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Phillip V. Tobias ,
John C. Vogel ,
H. Dieter Oschadleus ,
Timothy C. Partridge  and
Jeffrey K. McKee
Phillip V. Tobias
Affiliation:
Palaeo-anthropology Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand Medical School, 7 York Road, Parktown, Johannesburg 2193, South Africa
John C. Vogel
Affiliation:
Palaeo-anthropology Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand Medical School, 7 York Road, Parktown, Johannesburg 2193, South Africa
H. Dieter Oschadleus
Affiliation:
Palaeo-anthropology Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand Medical School, 7 York Road, Parktown, Johannesburg 2193, South Africa
Timothy C. Partridge
Affiliation:
Palaeo-anthropology Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand Medical School, 7 York Road, Parktown, Johannesburg 2193, South Africa
Jeffrey K. McKee
Affiliation:
Palaeo-anthropology Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand Medical School, 7 York Road, Parktown, Johannesburg 2193, South Africa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Earlier attempts to date the Taung hominid type specimen of Australopithecus africanus Dart yielded conflicting results. Recent faunal studies pointed to an age of 2.3 myr. Radioisotopic results suggested 1.0 myr. New uranium studies reveal that the Thabaseek (the oldest Taung tufa) was not a closed system and that younger uranium entered the tufa after initial deposition, producing an apparent isotopic age younger than the age of deposition. The Thabaseek isotopic dates provide only a terminus ad quem and this technique is therefore not applicable to the older Taung tufas. Delson's dating (2.3 myr) of cercopithecoids from Hrdlicka's pinnacle ca. 50 m from the hominid site provides the best available approximation to the age of the hominid. In our new Taung excavation, stratigraphic analysis indicates that the hominid may somewhat predate most identified fauna. Sedimentologically the hominid matrix proves to be of fluvial deposition, and hence closely resembles one Hrdlicka deposit, both samples differing appreciably from all other Taung samples which bespeak eolian deposition. Thus, the conditions under which the hominid-bearing stratum was deposited were virtually identical to those pertaining to one of the Hrdlicka deposits. The newest results show that Taung was not the youngest South African australopithecine site and eliminate the discrepancy between the relative ages of the Taung A. africanus africanus and the Sterkfontein A. africanus transvaalensis.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , November 1993 , pp. 360 - 367
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Brain, C. K. (1985). Interpreting early hominid death assemblages: The rise of taphonomy since 1925. In “Hominíd Evolution: Past, Present and Future” (Tobias, P. V., Ed.), pp. 41–46. A. R. Liss, New York.Google Scholar
Broom, R. (1946). The occurrence and general structure of the South African ape-men. Part 1. The South African fossil Ape-Men, the Aus-tralopithecinae. Transvaal Museum Memoir 2, 11–153.Google Scholar
Butzer, K. W. (1974). Paleocology of South African australopithecines: Taung revisited. Current Anthropology 15, 367–382.Google Scholar
Cooke, H. B. S. (1970). Notes from members. Canada: Dalhousie University, Halifax. Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology Bulletin 90, 2.Google Scholar
Cooke, H. B. S. (1990). Taung fossils in the University of California collections. In “From Apes to Angels” (Sperber, G. H., Ed.), pp. 119–134. Wiley-Liss, New York.Google Scholar
Dart, R. A. (1925). Australopithecus africanus: The man-ape of South Africa. Nature 115, 195–199.Google Scholar
Dart, R. A. (1940). The status of Australopithecus. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 26, 167–186.Google Scholar
Delson, E. (1984). Cercopithecid biochronology of the African Pliopleistocene: Correlation between eastern and southern hominid bearing localities. Courier Forschungs Institut Senckenberg 69, 199–218.Google Scholar
Delson, E. (1988). Chronology of South African australopithecine site units. In “Evolutionary History of the Robust Australopithecines” (Grine, F. E., Ed.), pp. 317–324. de Gruyter, New York.Google Scholar
Ewer, R. F. (1957). Faunal evidence on the dating of the Australo-pithecinae. In “Proceedings of the IIIrd Pan-African Congress on Prehistory, 1955” (Clark, J. D. and Cole, S., Eds.), pp. 135–142.Google Scholar
Freedman, L. (1970). A new check-list of fossil Cercopithecoidea of South Africa. Palaeontologia Africana 13, 109–110.Google Scholar
Gordon, G. B. (1925). Discussion on the calcareous tufa deposits of the Campbell Rand. Transactions of the Geological Society of South Africa 28, xxxvii.Google Scholar
Haughton, S. H. (1925). Note on the occurrence of a species of baboon in limestone deposits near Taungs. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa 12, 68.Google Scholar
McKee, J. K. (1992). Formation and geomorphology of caves in calcareous tufas and implications for the study of the Taung fossil deposits. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa, in press.Google Scholar
Partridge, T. C. (1973). Geomorphological dating of cave opening at Makapansgat, Sterkfontein, Swartkrans and Taung. Nature 246, 75–79.Google Scholar
Partridge, T. C. (1985). Spring flow and tufa accretion at Taung. In “Hominid Evolution: Past, Present and Future” (Tobias, P. V., Ed.), pp. 171–187. A. R. Liss, New York.Google Scholar
Partridge, T. C Bollen, J. F. Tobias, P. V., and McKee, J. K. (1991a). New light on the provenance of the Taung skull. South African Journal of Science 87, 340–341.Google Scholar
Partridge, T. C Tobias, P. V., and Hughes, A. R. (1991b). Paleoecolo-gie et affinités entre les australopithecines d’Afrique du Sud: Nou-velles données de Sterkfontein et Taung. L’Anthropologic (Paris) 95, 363–378.Google Scholar
Peabody, F. E. (1954). Travertines and cave deposits of the Kaap escarpment of South Africa, and the type locality of Australopithecus africanus Dart. Bulletin of the Geological Society of America 65, 671–706.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tobias, P. V. (1973a). New developments in hominid paleontology in South and East Africa. Annual Reviews of Anthropology 2, 311–334.Google Scholar
Tobias, P. V. (1973b). Implications of the new age estimates of the early South African hominids. Nature 246, 79–83.Google Scholar
Tobias, P. V. (1975). New African evidence on the dating and the phylogeny of the Plio-Pleistocene Hominidae. Bulletin of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Wellington 13, 289–296.Google Scholar
Tobias, P. V. (1978). The South African australopithecines in time and hominid phytogeny, with special reference to the dating and affinities of the Taung skull. In “Early Hominids of Africa” (Jolly, C. J., Ed.), pp. 45–84. Duckworth, London.Google Scholar
Tobias, P. V. (1985). The former Taung cave system in the light of contemporary reports and its bearing on the skull’s provenance: early deterrents to the acceptance of Australopithecus. In “Hominid Evolution: Past, Present and Future” (Tobias, P. V., Ed.), pp. 25–40. A. R. Liss, New York.Google Scholar
Tobias, P. V. (1988). Numerous apparently synapomorphic features in Australopithecus robustus, Australopithecus boisei and Homo habi-iis: Support for the Skelton-McHenry-Drawhorn hypothesis. In “Evolutionary History of the ‘Robust’ Australopithecines” (Grine, F. E., Ed.), pp. 293–308. de Gruyter, New York.Google Scholar
Tobias, P. V. (1992). New researches at Sterkfontein and Taung with a note on Piltdown and its relevance to the history of paleoanthropol-ogy. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa 48, 1–14.Google Scholar
Vogel, J. C, and Partridge, T. C. (1984). Preliminary radiometric ages for the Taung tufas. In “Late Cainozoic Palaeoclimates of the Southern Hemisphere” (Vogel, J. C., Ed.), pp. 507–514. A. A. Balkema, Rotterdam/Boston.Google Scholar
Vrba, E. S. Early hominids in southern Africa: Updated observations on chronological and ecological background. In “Hominid Evolution: Past, Present and Future” (Tobias, P. V., Ed.), pp. 195–200. A. R. Liss, New York.Google Scholar
Wells, L. H. (1967). Antelopes in the Pleistocene of Southern Africa. In “Background to Evolution in Africa” (Bishop, W. W. and Clark, J. D., Eds.), pp. 99–107. Chicago Univ. Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Wells, L. H. (1969). Faunal subdivisions of the Quaternary in southern Africa. South African Archaeological Bulletin 24, 93–95.Google Scholar