Plovers Lake
Plovers Lake Fossil Site, Cradle of Humankind | |
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Location | Gauteng, South Africa |
Nearest city | Krugersdorp, South Africa |
Coordinates | 25°58′39″S 27°46′36″E / 25.97750°S 27.77667°E |
Established | Incorporated into the Cradle of Humankind (1999) |
Governing body | Cradle of Humankind and Private Landowner |
Plovers Lake Cave is a fossil-bearing breccia filled cavity in
History of investigations
Plovers Lake had two periods of excavation. One in the late 1980s and early 1990s by
Recovered fossils
Many thousands of fossils were found by both teams. In the Outer Deposits, Brain and Thakeray discovered a very fine fossil baboon that had survived a leopard or saber-toothed cat attack as was evidenced by a healed wound over the eye. They also discovered many other animals and some indeterminate stone tools. No hominid fossils were discovered.
Berger and Churchill worked in the Inner Deposits, and quickly discovered that this site was younger than the Outer Deposits and contained the remains of Middle Stone Aged occupation by humans. They recovered over 25,000 fossil remains, many hundreds of tools including knives and spear points and fragmentary hominid remains dated to around 70,000 years ago.[3]
Geology
Plovers Lake is a large series of deposits formed along huge fissures in a checkerboard pattern. The Outer Deposit is a breccia-filled dolomitic cave that has been de-roofed. The Inner Deposits have most of the roof intact and extend for several hundred meters. Most of the site has not been excavated.
Age of the deposits
The Outer Deposits have been dated to around 1.0 million years old based on the size of porcupines recovered. The Inner Deposits have been dated to greater than 70,000 years using radiometric techniques.[3]
See also
- Hominids
- List of fossil sites
- Lee Berger
- Cradle of Humankind
References
- ^ "9/2/233/0035 - Plover's Lake, Kromdraai 520 JQ, Gauteng". South African Heritage Resources Agency. Retrieved 16 September 2013.
- ISBN 978-1-77007-065-3.
- ^ a b Berger; et al. (2003). Proceedings of the 72nd Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. AJPA.