Abstract
Las recientes excavaciones en Aves Cave I (AC), Brad Pit 'A' (BPA), Milo 'A' (MA), Bridge Cave (BC) y Alcelaphine Cave (AL), en la Cuna de la Humanidad, Gauteng (Sudáfrica), han proporcionado restos fósiles de suidos que aportan información bioestratigráfica sobre los intervalos de sedimentación del Sistema Paleokárstico de Bolt’s Farm. En Aves Cave I, Plioceno superior, se han encontrado restos del suido extinto Potamochoeroides hypsodon, incluyendo elementos esqueléticos que estaban poco representados en las colecciones previas de Bolt’s Farm, así como escasos restos de Notochoerus capensis. En Brad Pit 'A' se encontraron restos de Gerontochoerus koobiforaensis. En Milo 'A' y en otros depósitos se han hallado restos del suido Metridiochoerus andrewsi que indican la existencia de una fase posterior de sedimentación endokárstica (Pleistoceno inferior). En Panthera Spot en Bridge Cave se han encontrado huesos articulados del pie de un suido, determinados provisionalmente como Phacochoerus modestus, que indican una edad Pleistoceno inferior para este relleno. El aumento de la muestra de suidos de Bolt’s Farm invita a realizar comparaciones detalladas con los de Makapansgat lo que permite una revisión de la taxonomía de Notochoerus y Potamochoeroides. Se demuestra que ambos géneros son Suina y podrían ser sinónimos. También se han podido realizar comparaciones con los suidos del Plio-Pleistoceno de Malawi y Namibia.
Highlights
Fossil suids were first found at Bolt’s Farm in the 1930’s (Broom, 1937, 1948; Shaw, 1938) and have been collected sporadically since (Cooke, 1993; Pickford & Gommery, 2016)
The new fossils from Aves Cave I include several deciduous upper incisors and a canine as well as two examples of D3/ (Table 3) one of which is lightly worn at the cusp apices suggesting an individual of ca 3 months age, the other is deeply worn, indicating an older subject ca 11 months of age
General Discussion and Conclusions In African Plio-Pleistocene strata, suids are well-represented, and have proven to be useful for coarse-focus biostratigraphy, in East Africa where many records have been calibrated by radio-isotopic dating of subjacent volcanic deposits (Cooke & Maglio, 1972) and in Southern African karst-related deposits (Harris & White, 1979) where there are no volcanic deposits associated with the strata
Summary
Fossil suids were first found at Bolt’s Farm in the 1930’s (Broom, 1937, 1948; Shaw, 1938) and have been collected sporadically since (Cooke, 1993; Pickford & Gommery, 2016). There are pillars of enamel in the lingual and buccal ends of the transverse valley, and the distal cingulum forms low pillars on both sides of the posterior accessory cusplet. The crown is comprised of four main cusps as is usual in suids, and it has a tall and capacious, beaded anterior cingulum and a short talon comprised of pillar-like cingular structures The latter is comprised of three pillars that fuse together well above the cervix of the tooth. The Furchen are deep and the pre- and post-cristids of the main cusps are beaded, being subdivided into one or two low pillar-like structures with light grooves on the sides of the tooth, fading out towards the cervix. The enamel is lighty wrinkled, and in this specimen there are signs of cementum in the foveae
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