A simple sedimentological model demystifying the complexity of fossil bearing cave deposits in the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa.

Abstract

<p>The caves and palaeocaves from the Cradle of Humankind (Cradle), South Africa preserve a rich fossil record of early hominin evolution representing at least three genera: (<em>Australopithecus</em>, <em>Paranthropus</em>, early <em>Homo</em>) and have consequently been the subject of much research. Direct dating of the South African caves had long been hampered by the perception the sedimentary fills are not amenable to direct radiometric dating. The last decade has, however, seen major advances in the ability to reliably date the fossil sites. While some dating methods have been applied directly to fossils and their encasing sediments, the most precise and consistent results come from uranium lead (U-Pb) dating of cave carbonates, known as flowstones and a relatively large dataset places the cave deposits and fossils between 3 and 1.5 Ma. Coupled with the dating issues, there is a second, long held view that the stratigraphy of these sites is too complex and, in many cases, unresolvable. However, coupled with the advances in direct dating the flowstones, there has been a considerable change in understanding of the depositional setting and stratigraphy of these ancient caves. Here we present a model to demystify the stratigraphy and sedimentology of the cave deposits and offer a set of facies which can be applied, in modified site-by-site basis, at all the fossil localities throughout the Cradle. Sedimentary facies vary laterally, depending on the distance from the cave entrance, with entrance facies characterised by coarse-grained material, even piles of boulders. Hydrodynamic sorting winnows finer material and bone into the deeper reaches of the cave resulting in red-brown layered or massive sediments. These clastic sediments are almost all externally derived, and in our model are correlated to times during which the cave entrances are more open; we argue these time windows correlate to a drier external hydroclimate. The stacked occurrence of flowstones and these clastic sediments point to these conditions, both how open the caves are and the general climate state, have oscillated repeatedly in the past. The U-Pb flowstone chronology pins the flowstones and their deposition to specific time windows and investigations into the bigger climatic picture are ongoing. This has the potential to provide a detailed palaeoenvironmental context for the rich early human fossil record, as well as provide otherwise rare southern hemisphere terrestrial records of hydroclimate variability.</p>