Cosmogenic nuclide burial dating of hominin-bearing Pleistocene cave deposits at Swartkrans, South Africa

Stretching the time span of hominin evolution at Kromdraai (Gauteng, South Africa): Recent discoveries

“…U-Pb dates are available for the nearby site of Swartkrans. The oldest P. robustus specimens from Swartkrans Member 1 may represent either a relatively short period averaging 1.99 or 1.8 Ma, or rather a duration of deposition from 2.19 to 1.80 Ma (Gibbon et al, 2014;Pickering et al, 2011). When considering previous faunal seriations of South African Plio-Pleistocene sites (McKee et al, 1995), these results are well in line with the cosmogenic maximal dates obtained for Sterkfontein Member 5 at 2.18 Ma (Granger et al, 2015), regarded as younger than KB Member 3.…”

Inner structural organization of the distal humerus in Paranthropus and Homo

“…b Braga et al, 2016a, b;Bruxelles et al, 2016. c Balter et al, 2008Curnoe et al, 2001;Gibbon et al, 2014;Pickering et al, 2011;Vrba, 1981. d Balter et al, 2008Brain, 1993;Gibbon et al, 2014;Herries et al, 2009.…”

Microbial osteolysis in an Early Pleistocene hominin (Paranthropus robustus) from Swartkrans, South Africa

“…Electron spin resonance (ESR) studies on tooth enamel (Blackwell, 1994;Curnoe et al, 2001) have produced a preposterously broad range of datesd4.38e 0.36 Madfor the three fossiliferous members. Substantially more reasonable age ranges of about 2.0e1.6 Ma for Member 1, 1.5e1.0 Ma for Member 2, and approximately 1.0e0.8 Ma for Member 3 are indicated by palaeontological correlation (Brain, 1993b;McKee et al, 1995;Vrba, 1995), UePb studies of bovid tooth enamel (Balter et al, 2008) and speleothems (R. Pickering et al, 2011), and analysis of buried cosmogenic nuclides (Gibbon et al, 2014).…”