Gondolin Cave
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Gondolin Cave is a fossiliferous
dolomitic Dolomite () is an anhydrous carbonate mineral composed of calcium magnesium carbonate, ideally The term is also used for a sedimentary carbonate rock composed mostly of the mineral dolomite. An alternative name sometimes used for the dolomiti ...
paleocave system in the Northwest Province,
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
. The paleocave formed in the Eccles Formation
dolomite Dolomite may refer to: *Dolomite (mineral), a carbonate mineral *Dolomite (rock), also known as dolostone, a sedimentary carbonate rock *Dolomite, Alabama, United States, an unincorporated community *Dolomite, California, United States, an unincor ...
s ( Malmani Subgroup, Chuniespoort Group carbonate-
banded iron formation Banded iron formations (also known as banded ironstone formations or BIFs) are distinctive units of sedimentary rock consisting of alternating layers of iron oxides and iron-poor chert. They can be up to several hundred meters in thickness a ...
marine platform). Gondolin is currently the only described
hominin The Hominini form a taxonomic tribe of the subfamily Homininae ("hominines"). Hominini includes the extant genera ''Homo'' (humans) and '' Pan'' (chimpanzees and bonobos) and in standard usage excludes the genus ''Gorilla'' (gorillas). The t ...
-bearing
fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...
site in the Northwest Province-portion of the designated Cradle of Humankind
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...
. The cave is located on privately owned land and is not accessible to the public. As is the case with other South African Paleo-cave systems with
Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), 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 fina ...
fossil deposits, the system was mined for lime during the early 20th century. As a result, the system has been heavily disturbed and consists of only a small active cave, a series of ''in situ'' remnant cave deposits, and extensive dumpsites of ''ex situ'' calcified sediments produced during mining activities.


Site history and excavations

No records of the date of lime mining activities at Gondolin, maps or photographs of the cave prior to mining are known to exist. Long-term residents near Gondolin report that the system was mined prior to the 1950s. The cave was named after J.R.R. Tolkien's ''
Gondolin In Tolkien's legendarium, Gondolin was a secret city of Elves in the First Age of Middle-earth. The story of the Fall of Gondolin tells of the founding of the city; of the arrival there of Tuor, a prince of Men; of the betrayal of the city to Mor ...
'' by the early 1970s. ''Transvaal Museum Bulletin'', Issues 10-22 (1971). Exposed fossils in the cave system were noted at least as early as the 1970s and brought to the attention of
Elisabeth Vrba Elisabeth S. Vrba (born 17 May 1942) is a paleontologist at Yale University who developed the turnover-pulse hypothesis. Education Vrba earned her Ph.D. in Zoology and Palaeontology at the University of Cape Town, in 1974. Vrba studied zoology ...
and David Panagos at the (then)
Transvaal Museum The Ditsong National Museum of Natural History, formerly the Transvaal Museum, is a natural history museum situated in Pretoria, South Africa. It is located on Paul Kruger Street, between Visagie and Minnaar Streets, opposite the Pretoria City Ha ...
(now the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History), who initiated excavations in early 1979. The first phase of excavation addressed the extremely fossiliferous ''
in situ ''In situ'' (; often not italicized in English) is a Latin phrase that translates literally to "on site" or "in position." It can mean "locally", "on site", "on the premises", or "in place" to describe where an event takes place and is used in ...
''remnant deposits adhering to the northern wall of the cave system (the GD 2 deposits ''sensu''). The three-week 1979 excavation removed approximately of calcified sediments from the northern cave wall. While two distinct sediment phases were recognized during the original excavation, later work with the
fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...
fauna Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is ''flora'', and for fungi, it is '' funga''. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively referred to as '' biota''. Zoo ...
and geology of the GD 2 deposits did not find any basis for multiple depositional phases within the sampled sequence. The removed sediment blocks were organised into 43 blocks/trays and processed using acetic acid at the Transvaal Museum. A significant gap in research at Gondolin occurred in the 1980s, during which time all of the excavated blocks were processed (but no further ''in situ ''or ''ex situ ''sampling is known to have occurred). The first description of the result fossil assemblage in 1993 only partially described 4,344 individual specimens that could be assigned to a specific taxonomic levels (out of the 90,663 total specimens recovered from acetic acid processing of the 43 trays/blocks). In 1997 a survey of the sediments at Gondolin included the first sampling of the extensive ''ex situ ''dumpsite deposits at the locality via a test trench (Trench A). Materials removed from Trench A included fossiliferous breccia blocks from most, if not all, of the stratigraphic units present at the site (as well as loose fossil specimens sifted from decalcified sediments). From this sampled material (the GD A faunal assemblage), two isolated hominin teeth (representing two different individuals) were recovered. The first, GA 1, is a worn and fractured left molar that has not been confidently attributed to either genus or species (but resembles ''
Homo ''Homo'' () is the genus that emerged in the (otherwise extinct) genus ''Australopithecus'' that encompasses the extant species ''Homo sapiens'' ( modern humans), plus several extinct species classified as either ancestral to or closely relate ...
'' in some features. In contrast, GA 2 is a complete left m2 that has been recently analysed and attributed to ''Paranthropus robustus ''(if from a large individual). The most recent excavations at Gondolin were undertaken in 2003 and 2004 to explore the largely decalcified GD 1 deposits along the northwestern rim of the Gondolin locality. A four-week excavation season produced a sample of 4,863 fossil specimens from approximately of soil overburden and naturally decalcified sediments that were screened with 1mm mesh. Critically, integration of taphonomic and geologic data from the GD 1 excavations indicated that fundamentally different processes of fossil record formation were occurring at Gondolin during the formation of the GD 1 and GD 2 fossil assemblages. This result highlighted the complex, heterogenous geologic processes that can influence fossil deposition and assemblage composition in South African cave systems during the late Pliocene and early Pleistocene.


Fossil fauna

The original description of fossil specimens from the GD 2 deposits only addressed a small portion of the assemblage. A single hominin tooth that was originally thought to have been derived from the GD 2 sampling was later determined to be an intrusive modern ''Homo'' tooth. A comprehensive reanalysis of the Gondolin GD 2 assemblage undertaken from 2002 to 2004 led to the identification of 95,549 total individual specimens (in contrast to the 90,663 specimens originally noted in 1993), of which 16,477 are identifiable craniodental (3,484) or postcranial (12,993) specimens; with the remaining 79,076 specimens being unidentifiable (primarily long bone diaphysis) fragments. The assemblage composition described from this reanalysis differs in key respects from that of the initial 1993 description, including significant shifts in the specimen counts attributed to individual taxonomic categories (both numbers of individual specimens and minimum numbers of individuals) and the removal of several species (''Hippopotamus ''sp., ''Antidorcas australis/marsupialis'', ''Procavia transvaalensis''). The revised description of the GD 2 assemblage also reinforced several unique features of the collection compared to other South African late Pliocene and Pleistocene: * The numerical dominance of two rarely encountered antelope species - klipspringer ('' Oreotragus oreotragus'') and a species of reduncin ('' Redunca ''sp.) similar to the extant mountain reedbuck ''( Redunca fulvorufula''). * The first described occurrence of the extinct porcupine (''Hystrix makapanensis'') from an assemblage other than the Makapansgat Member 3 deposits (including the first postcrania attributed to the species). * The first comprehensive taphonomic analysis of a South African early Pleistocene assemblage solely derived from ''in situ ''deposits. * A robust sample of directly associated cranial and postcranial remains for many fossil species, including several groupings of articulated fossils. * The recovery of fragile elements including hyoids and fetal/neonatal remains. * The absence of any identificable primate remains within the assemblage.


Age of the deposits

The Gondolin Palaeo-cave deposits have been dated using a combination of
biostratigraphy Biostratigraphy is the branch of stratigraphy which focuses on correlating and assigning relative ages of rock Stratum, strata by using the fossil assemblages contained within them.Hine, Robert. “Biostratigraphy.” ''Oxford Reference: Dictiona ...
and
palaeomagnetism Paleomagnetism (or palaeomagnetismsee ), is the study of magnetic fields recorded in rocks, sediment, or archeological materials. Geophysicists who specialize in paleomagnetism are called ''paleomagnetists.'' Certain magnetic minerals in rocks ...
which indicate an age of around 1.8 million years.


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* *. * * * * * * * * * * * {{Navbox prehistoric caves Pleistocene paleontological sites of Africa Caves of South Africa Archaeological sites of Southern Africa Things named after Tolkien works