Publication Date:
2010-04-10
Description:
We describe the geological, geochronological, geomorphological, and faunal context of the Malapa site and the fossils of Australopithecus sediba. The hominins occur with a macrofauna assemblage that existed in Africa between 2.36 and 1.50 million years ago (Ma). The fossils are encased in water-laid, clastic sediments that were deposited along the lower parts of what is now a deeply eroded cave system, immediately above a flowstone layer with a U-Pb date of 2.026 +/- 0.021 Ma. The flowstone has a reversed paleomagnetic signature and the overlying hominin-bearing sediments are of normal polarity, indicating deposition during the 1.95- to 1.78-Ma Olduvai Subchron. The two hominin specimens were buried together in a single debris flow that lithified soon after deposition in a phreatic environment inaccessible to scavengers.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Dirks, Paul H G M -- Kibii, Job M -- Kuhn, Brian F -- Steininger, Christine -- Churchill, Steven E -- Kramers, Jan D -- Pickering, Robyn -- Farber, Daniel L -- Meriaux, Anne-Sophie -- Herries, Andy I R -- King, Geoffrey C P -- Berger, Lee R -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2010 Apr 9;328(5975):205-8. doi: 10.1126/science.1184950.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD 4811, Australia. paul.dirks@jcu.edu.au〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20378812" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
*Fossils
;
*Geologic Sediments
;
Geological Phenomena
;
*Hominidae
;
Radiometric Dating
;
South Africa
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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