Taphonomy of a modern landscape bone assemblage in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania
Author(s): Liat Lebovich; Victoria P. Johnson; Ryan M. Byerly; Cynthia M. Fadem; Charles P. Egeland
Year: 2017
Summary
Bone assemblages from modern landscapes can help address a variety of issues, from the degree to which
bone scatters accurately reflect local habitats to what variables condition the deposition, preservation, and
spatial distribution of faunal material. In 2015, systematic pedestrian survey recovered ~350 bone
specimens within a 200m x 200m area of open grassland about two kilometers north of Olduvai Gorge in
the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA). Weathering profiles suggest an exposure, and thus
accumulation, time of many years. Find density is well under one bone specimen per square meter,
although spatial analysis reveals significant clumping. The findings from the NCA "background scatter"
are used better understand the paleoecology and taphonomy of Olduvai Gorge’s well-known early
Pleistocene faunal assemblages.
Cite this Record
Taphonomy of a modern landscape bone assemblage in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania. Liat Lebovich, Victoria P. Johnson, Ryan M. Byerly, Cynthia M. Fadem, Charles P. Egeland. Presented at The 81st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Vancouver, British Columbia. 2017 ( tDAR id: 430559)
This Resource is Part of the Following Collections
Keywords
General
Landscape
•
Taphonomy
•
Zooarchaeology
Geographic Keywords
AFRICA
Spatial Coverage
min long: -18.809; min lat: -38.823 ; max long: 53.262; max lat: 38.823 ;
Record Identifiers
Abstract Id(s): 15633