Neotaphonomy of a "Common Amenity" on the Grasslands of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Identifying the variables that influence the deposition, preservation, and spatial distribution of faunal material across landscapes remains a key goal of taphonomic research. Here, we report on the results of pedestrian surveys for faunal material around a seasonal waterhole surrounded by woodland within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA). All visible faunal material within a 100 x 100 m area was plotted with a laser total station and collected. Focused analysis of a subassemblage collected under the canopy of a tree reveals a significant co-occurrence of modern human and carnivore taphonomic signatures. We disuss these findings within the context of Glynn Isaac’s "common amenity" model for the formation of many early Pleistocene archaeological sites.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Neotaphonomy of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23519