Pinnacle Point (Other Keyword)
1-5 (5 Records)
Chronology underpins our understanding of the past, but beyond the limit of radiocarbon dating (~50 ka), sites become more difficult to date. Amino acid geochronology, which uses the time-dependent breakdown of proteins in biominerals, has the potential to date the whole of the Quaternary. Ostrich eggshell (OES) is often associated with archaeological sites in Africa, as early humans utilised them as a food source, water carriers and for artistic purposes. OES’s calcitic structure potentially...
Cryptotephra Discovered at Pinnacle Point Site 5-6 May Correlate with the 74 ka Eruption of Toba in Indonesia: Implications for Resolving the Dating Controversy for Middle Stone Age Sites in Southern Africa. (2015)
Cryptotephra was identified in a sediment stack at Pinnacle Point Site 5-6, South Africa, and occur as small glass shards (less than 100 µm in size). Shards are found in sediment from the Shelly Ashy Dark Brown Sand (SADBS) and the Ashy Light Brown Sand (ALBS) layers with weighted mean OSL dates of 70.6 ± 2.3 and 71.1 ± 2.3 ka respectively. The shards are intimately mixed with sediment and are rare. A preliminary shard distribution profile shows that shards are distributed continuously through...
Environmental implications of marine bird remains in the late Holocene of Pinnacle Point. (2015)
Marine bird remains are common in late Holocene coastal sites in South Africa. The Pinnacle Point Shell Midden Complex (PPSMC) is such a site. Marine bird remains from the PPSMC were studied to better understand their role in the foraging and mobility patterns of late Holocene stone age people on the Mossel Bay coast. The PPSMC has four separate excavation areas and marine bird remains are present and were studied in each. Microscopic analyses for signs of surface modification proved to be...
Paleoenvironmental implications of Stable Isotope analyses of Micromammal teeth from Pinnacle Point (Mossel Bay, South Africa) (2015)
Paleoenvironmental proxies sample past environments at a number of geographic scales including regional, sub-regional, and local. Given species’ small home ranges and often-specific habitat requirements, isotopic data from micromammal fossil teeth are increasingly recognized as abundant potential reservoirs of local-scale paleoenvironmental proxy data. Elucidating differences between local and regional vegetation provides a context for understanding landscape-scale environmental variation,...
Testing the Paleo-Agulhas Plain Migration Ecosystem hypothesis with serial isotope analysis of fossil fauna (2015)
In contrast to Holocene sites, late Pleistocene sites along the South African south coast are dominated by large and medium-sized ungulates, many of which are typical of open-habitat grasslands and migration ecosystems. During much of the late Pleistocene, sea levels were substantially lower, exposing the Paleo-Agulhas Plain up to 100 km south of the modern coastline. The Migration Ecosystem hypothesis proposes that the Paleo-Agulhas Plain supported a migration ecosystem driven by summer...