With National Science Foundation support Dr. Curtis Marean and his students will analyze faunal remains recovered from the archaeological site of Die Kelders. Located on the southern coast of South Africa, approximately 120 km SE of Cape town, it includes two adjoining caves and the stratified deposits contained therein document human activity for possibly as much as a quarter million years. The materials recovered by Dr. Marean and collaborators through NSF supported research include stone tools and hominid teeth as well as abundant faunal remains. This latter body of material constitutes the focus for the current study. The group will analyze mammal bones - most introduced to the caves through human hunting - from the earlier Middle Stone Age (MSA) levels of the site. The goal of the work is to examine not only diet but to reconstruct the techniques employed to obtain prey. It is possible through the examination of body part distributions to determine whether the animal carcasses consumed resulted from purposeful hunting or from scavenging of carnivore kills. A list of species which were hunted and eaten also provides insight into hunting capabilities. A study of this kind is time consuming because prior work by Dr. Marean has confirmed the necessity to focus not only on large and easily identifiable bone fragments but also on smaller splinters of longbone shaft which archaeologists normally categorize as `unidentifiable.` Thus extensive refitting is necessary. Archaeologists believe that the Middle Stone Age peoples of Africa were either the immediate ancestors or first representatives of behaviorally modern humans and through analysis of their behavior it will be possible to gain insight into modern human origins. There has been extensive disagreement about the level of cultural competence exhibited by such groups and much of this has centered on subsistence competence. Some archaeologists have argued that MSA groups lacked the ability to hunt large animals and that such remains recovered in sites resulted from scavenging. Others believe exactly the opposite is the case. With the carefully excavated materials from Die Kelders and the analytic techniques Dr. Marean and colleagues have developed, it should be possible to select among these, and several other alternatives. This research is important because it will shed new light on the emergence of modern human behavior. It will provide data of interest to many archaeologists and assist in training and furthering the academic careers of several graduate students.
