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Plovers Lake
''Plovers Lake Cave'' is a fossil-bearing breccia filled cavity in South Africa. The cave is located about 4 km Southeast of the well known South African hominid-bearing sites of Sterkfontein and Kromdraai and about 36 km Northwest of the City of Johannesburg, South Africa. Plovers Lake has been declared a South African National Heritage Site. History of investigations Plovers Lake had two periods of excavation. One in the late 1980s and early 1990s by C.K. "Bob" Brain and Francis Thackeray of the then ''Transvaal Museum'' (now known as the Northern Flagship Institute) in what is known as the "Outer Deposits", and the second by Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand and Steve Churchill of Duke University in 2000 – 2004 in the "Inner Deposits". 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gauteng
Gauteng ( ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name in Sotho-Tswana languages means 'place of gold'. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts for only 1.5% of the country's land area, it is home to more than a quarter of its population (26%). Highly urbanised, the province contains the country's largest city, Johannesburg, which is also one of the largest cities in the world. Gauteng is the wealthiest province in South Africa and is considered as the financial hub of not only South Africa but the entire African continent, mostly concentrated in Johannesburg. It also contains the administrative capital, Pretoria, and other large areas such as Midrand, Vanderbijlpark, Ekurhuleni and the affluent Sandton. Gauteng is the most populous province in South Africa with a population of approximately 16.1 million people according to mid year 2022 estimates. Etymology The name ''Gauteng'' is derived ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baboon
Baboons are primates comprising the genus ''Papio'', one of the 23 genera of Old World monkeys. There are six species of baboon: the hamadryas baboon, the Guinea baboon, the olive baboon, the yellow baboon, the Kinda baboon and the chacma baboon. Each species is native to one of six areas of Africa and the hamadryas baboon is also native to part of the Arabian Peninsula. Baboons are among the largest non-hominoid primates and have existed for at least two million years. Baboons vary in size and weight depending on the species. The smallest, the Kinda baboon, is in length and weighs only , while the largest, the chacma baboon, is up to in length and weighs . All baboons have long, dog-like muzzles, heavy, powerful jaws with sharp canine teeth, close-set eyes, thick fur except on their muzzles, short tails, and nerveless, hairless pads of skin on their protruding buttocks called ischial callosities that provide for sitting comfort. Male hamadryas baboons have large white man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Landforms Of Gauteng
A landform is a natural or anthropogenic land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement in the landscape is known as topography. Landforms include hills, mountains, canyons, and valleys, as well as shoreline features such as bays, peninsulas, and seas, including submerged features such as mid-ocean ridges, volcanoes, and the great ocean basins. Physical characteristics Landforms are categorized by characteristic physical attributes such as elevation, slope, orientation, stratification, rock exposure and soil type. Gross physical features or landforms include intuitive elements such as berms, mounds, hills, ridges, cliffs, valleys, rivers, peninsulas, volcanoes, and numerous other structural and size-scaled (e.g. ponds vs. lakes, hills vs. mountains) elements including various kinds of inland and oceanic waterbodies and sub-surface features. Mountains, hills, plateaux, and plains are the fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Limestone Caves
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms when these minerals precipitate out of water containing dissolved calcium. This can take place through both biological and nonbiological processes, though biological processes, such as the accumulation of corals and shells in the sea, have likely been more important for the last 540 million years. Limestone often contains fossils which provide scientists with information on ancient environments and on the evolution of life. About 20% to 25% of sedimentary rock is carbonate rock, and most of this is limestone. The remaining carbonate rock is mostly dolomite, a closely related rock, which contains a high percentage of the mineral dolomite, . ''Magnesian limestone'' is an obsolete and poorly-defined term used variously for dolomite, for limestone co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caves Of South Africa
A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea caves, rock shelters, and grottos, that extend a relatively short distance into the rock and they are called ''exogene'' caves. Caves which extend further underground than the opening is wide are called ''endogene'' caves. Speleology is the science of exploration and study of all aspects of caves and the cave environment. Visiting or exploring caves for recreation may be called ''caving'', ''potholing'', or ''spelunking''. Formation types The formation and development of caves is known as ''speleogenesis''; it can occur over the course of millions of years. Caves can range widely in size, and are formed by various geological processes. These may involve a combination of chemical processes, erosion by water, tectonic forces, microorganism ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pleistocene Paleontological Sites Of Africa
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in 2009 by the International Union of Geological Sciences, the cutoff of the Pleistocene and the preceding Pliocene was regarded as being 1.806 million years Before Present (BP). Publications from earlier years may use either definition of the period. The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the last glacial period and also with the end of the Paleolithic age used in archaeology. The name is a combination of Ancient Greek grc, label=none, πλεῖστος, pleīstos, most and grc, label=none, καινός, kainós (latinized as ), 'new'. At the end of the preceding Pliocene, the previously isolated North and South American continents were joined by the Isthmus of Panama, causing a faunal interchange between the two reg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archaeological Sites In South Africa
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes. Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. It is usually considered an independent academic discipline, but may also be classified as part of anthropology (in North America – the four-field approach), history or geography. Archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology is distinct from palaeontology, which is the study of fossil remains. Archaeology is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for which, by definition, there are no written records. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the adve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cradle Of Humankind
The Cradle of Humankind is a paleoanthropological site and is located about northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa, in the Gauteng province. Declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1999, the site is home to the largest concentration of human ancestral remains anywhere in the world. The site currently occupies and contains a complex system of limestone caves. The registered name of the site in the list of World Heritage Sites is ''Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa''. According to the ''South African Journal of Science,'' Bolt's Farm is the place where the earliest primate was discovered. Bolt's Farm was heavily mined for speleothem (calcium carbonate from stalagmites, stalactites and flowstones) in the terminal 19th and early 20th centuries. The Sterkfontein Caves were the site of the discovery of a 2.3-million-year-old fossil ''Australopithecus africanus'' (nicknamed "Mrs. Ples"), found in 1947 by Robert Broom and John T. Robinson. The find helped corroborate the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Fossil Sites
This list of fossil sites is a worldwide list of localities known well for the presence of fossils. Some entries in this list are notable for a single, unique find, while others are notable for the large number of fossils found there. Many of the entries in this list are considered Lagerstätten (sedimentary deposits that exhibits extraordinary fossils with exceptional preservation—sometimes including preserved soft tissues). Lagerstätten are indicated by a note () in the noteworthiness column. Fossils may be found either associated with a geological formation or at a single geographic site. Geological formations consist of rock that was deposited during a specific period of time. They usually extend for large areas, and sometimes there are different important sites in which the same formation is exposed. Such sites may have separate entries if they are considered to be more notable than the formation as a whole. In contrast, extensive formations associated with large areas m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hominids
The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the eastern and western gorilla); '' Pan'' (the chimpanzee and the bonobo); and ''Homo'', of which only modern humans remain. Several revisions in classifying the great apes have caused the use of the term ''"hominid"'' to vary over time. The original meaning of "hominid" referred only to humans (''Homo'') and their closest extinct relatives. However, by the 1990s humans, apes, and their ancestors were considered to be "hominids". The earlier restrictive meaning has now been largely assumed by the term ''"hominin"'', which comprises all members of the human clade after the split from the chimpanzees (''Pan''). The current meaning of "hominid" includes all the great apes including humans. Usage still varies, however, and some scientists and laypers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Breccia
Breccia () is a rock composed of large angular broken fragments of minerals or rocks cemented together by a fine-grained matrix. The word has its origins in the Italian language, in which it means "rubble". A breccia may have a variety of different origins, as indicated by the named types including sedimentary breccia, tectonic breccia, igneous breccia, impact breccia, and hydrothermal breccia. A megabreccia is a breccia composed of very large rock fragments, sometimes kilometers across, which can be formed by landslides, impact events, or caldera collapse. Types Breccia is composed of coarse rock fragments held together by cement or a fine-grained matrix. Like conglomerate, breccia contains at least 30 percent of gravel-sized particles (particles over 2mm in size), but it is distinguished from conglomerate because the rock fragments have sharp edges that have not been worn down. These indicate that the gravel was deposited very close to its source area, since otherwise th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Stone Age
The Middle Stone Age (or MSA) was a period of African prehistory between the Early Stone Age and the Late Stone Age. It is generally considered to have begun around 280,000 years ago and ended around 50–25,000 years ago. The beginnings of particular MSA stone tools have their origins as far back as 550–500,000 years ago and as such some researchers consider this to be the beginnings of the MSA. The MSA is often mistakenly understood to be synonymous with the Middle Paleolithic of Europe, especially due to their roughly contemporaneous time span, however, the Middle Paleolithic of Europe represents an entirely different hominin population, ''Homo neanderthalensis'', than the MSA of Africa, which did not have Neanderthal populations. Additionally, current archaeological research in Africa has yielded much evidence to suggest that modern human behavior and cognition was beginning to develop much earlier in Africa during the MSA than it was in Europe during the Middle Paleoli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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