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There are many factors that contribute to the evolutionary success of species, for example, species often develop elaborate predator avoidance behaviour. Such behaviours can be studied by ethologists in extant animals, but supporting empirical evidence is often lacking for such behaviours in extinct organisms. Using living animals as proxies for extinct species usually allows for behavioural analogies, such as the use of baboon behaviour to infer the behaviour of our human ancestors and relatives. South Africa is inhabited by a large primate, the chacma baboon (Papio ursinus). Baboons are comparable in size and weight to australopithecines like Paranthropus robustus and Australopithecus africanus and their human-like behaviour has long been recognised.

The teaching of evolution at school level in South Africa was introduced in 2006. However, evolution remains a controversial aspect for school learners in South Africa, and many misconceptions persist among teachers and learners. The study described in this paper sought to investigate whether an interactive palaeosciences university-based museum programme (PUMP) would benefit the examination outcome of learners in human evolution in the Gauteng Province of South Africa. The PUMP made use of sociocultural theory and consisted of inquiry-based activities with casts of hominid skulls and pelvic bones. The Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) framework was used as a theoretical framework. Pre- and post-tests were written, before and directly after the activities, and a provincial examination essay question was analysed to see if there was a difference in results between those who attended the PUMP and those who did not. Focus interviews were conducted with learners and teachers. The results of this study indicate that the understanding of human evolution increased following PUMP. This study advocates an inquiry-based approach to the teaching of evolution to learners, preferably at an informal science learning institution such as a museum.Significance:• Workshops increased Grade-12 learners’ understanding of human evolution.• The workshops improved the preliminary examination results of the Grade-12 learners.• It is recommended that the teaching of human evolution to school learners be supplemented with visits to informal learning centres such as museums.

Hoekfontein is a Late Iron Age settlement in the Central Bankenveld of South Africa. Rescue excavations were undertaken at the site in 2002. The fauna indicates that livestock and wild animals are present in the sample. Cattle is the dominant taxon. This is also the case at other Late Iron Age settlements in the region, including mega-sites. The presence of expedient bone tools and worked freshwater mussel is similar to those found at other Late Iron Age sites.

In the Levant and some arid zones of Central Asia, desert kites are well-known hunting structures often thought to have been used for the large-scale harvesting of gazelles during the Holocene. Until recently, such structures were unknown from the southern hemisphere. However, three kite sites have now been identified in Keimoes in the arid hinterland north of the Gariep River where the northwest Nama Karoo (the geographic area and ecology otherwise known as Bushmanland [Mucina and Rutherford 2006]) and Kalahari Duneveld bioregions meet. Here we use aspects of gazelle behavior, and local ethnographical and ethno-historical records, to explore the possibility that the stone-built kites or funnel chains of South Africa may have been used to hunt springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis\\southern Africa's only gazelle. We argue that seasonal herds of gazelles, colloquially known as trekbokken (large springbok herds on the march), were a possible target of precolonial hunters who used their intimate understanding of the animals and their landscape to design the kites. Dans le Levant et certaines zones arides d'Asie centrale, les cerfs-volants du désert sont des structures de chasse bien connues, souvent utilisées pour la récolte à grande échelle de gazelles pendant l'Holocène. Jusqu'à récemment, de telles structures étaient inconnues de l'hémisphère sud, mais trois sites de cerf-volant ont maintenant été signalés à Keimoes, dans l'arrière-pays aride au nord de la rivière Gariep, à la croisée des biorégions du Nord Ouest Nama Karoo' et du Kalahari Duneveld. Ici, nous utilisons des aspects du comportement des gazelles et des archives ethnographiques et ethno-historiques locales pour explorer la possibilité que les cerfs-volants ou les chaînes en entonnoir construits en pierre d'Afrique du Sud aient été utilisés pour exploiter le springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis), seule gazelle d'Afrique australe. Nous soutenons que les troupeaux saisonniers de ce qui était communément connu sous le nom de trekbokken (grands troupeaux de springbok en marche) étaient une cible possible pour les chasseurs précoloniaux de cerfsvolants et d'entonnoirs dotés d'une compréhension intime des animaux et de leur paysage.

Background The aardwolf skulls were analyzed and compared to the spotted hyena, the brown hyena and the striped hyena, using specimens from Polish and South African collections. Addressing gaps in detailed anatomy and morphometrics, this study used extensive analyzes, encompassing 64 morphometric parameters and 7 indices, to examine the morphology and morphometrics of cranial and mandibular structures and quantify interspecific and intraspecific variation. Results The comparative analysis of hyena skulls revealed significant differences between the aardwolf and the other three species. The aardwolf consistently had the smallest and proportionally narrowest skull, characterized by high morphological stability and a wide neurocranium. The brown hyena and spotted hyena had the largest skulls; however, the brown hyena showed greater homogeneity, while the spotted hyena displayed higher absolute variability. Morphologically, the aardwolf’s basilar part was cylindrical, unlike the pyramidal shape in the spotted hyena, and it possessed prominent nuchal tubercles that were reduced in the brown and spotted hyenas. Conclusions This study demonstrates that the morphological and morphometric features of the aardwolf’s skull are highly specialized and fundamentally distinct from the other three hyena species, reflecting its unique dietary niche. The powerful skulls of the spotted and brown hyenas, in contrast, correlate with their roles as apex predators and scavengers.

Excavations during November 2013 in the Rising Star Cave, South Africa, yielded more than 1550 specimens of a new hominin, Homo naledi. Four bird bones were collected from the surface of the Dinaledi Chamber during the first phase of the initial excavations. Although mentioned in the initial geological and taphonomic reports, the bird remains have not been formally identified and described until now. Here we identify these remains as the extant barn owl (Tyto alba) which is today common in the region and which is considered to have been an important agent of accumulation of microfaunal remains at many local Plio-Pleistocene sites in the Cradle of Humankind. Based on the greatest length measurement and breadth of the proximal articulation of the tarsometatarsus specimen, it is suggested that a single (female) individual is represented, despite the small sample sizes available for comparison. Although it is unclear how the remains of this female owl came to be accumulated in the remote Dinaledi Chamber, we suggest several possible taphonomic scenarios and hypothesise that these remains are not directly associated with the Homo naledi remains.

The Middle Stone Age (MSA) of southern Africa, and in particular its Still Bay and Howiesons Poort lithic traditions, represents a period of dramatic subsistence, cultural, and technological innovation by our species, Homo sapiens. Climate change has frequently been postulated as a primary driver of the appearance of these innovative behaviours, with researchers invoking either climate instability as a reason for the development of buffering mechanisms, or environmentally stable refugia as providing a stable setting for experimentation. Testing these alternative models has proved intractable, however, as existing regional palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental records remain spatially, stratigraphically, and chronologically disconnected from the archaeological record. Here we report high-resolution records of environmental shifts based on stable carbon and oxygen isotopes in ostrich eggshell (OES) fragments, faunal remains, and shellfish assemblages excavated from two key MSA archaeological sequences, Blombos Cave and Klipdrift Shelter. We compare these records with archaeological material remains in the same strata. The results from both sites, spanning the periods 98-73 ka and 72-59 ka, respectively, show significant changes in vegetation, aridity, rainfall seasonality, and sea temperature in the vicinity of the sites during periods of human occupation. While these changes clearly influenced human subsistence strategies, we find that the remarkable cultural and technological innovations seen in the sites cannot be linked directly to climate shifts. Our results demonstrate the need for scale-appropriate, on-site testing of behavioural-environmental links, rather than broader, regional comparisons.

In contrast to a rich record of Later Stone Age occupation across the Pleistocene/Holocene transition, previous research has struggled to identify in situ evidence of hunter-gatherer presence between c. 8200 BP and the second millennium AD on the Lesotho side of the Caledon River. Fieldwork undertaken ahead of the commissioning of the Metolong Dam on Lesotho’s Phuthiatsana River, the Caledon’s largest tributary, has afforded a means of re-addressing this question. This paper reports the excavation of post-8200 BP assemblages at four sites within the dam’s catchment: Fateng Tsa Pholo, Litsoetse, Ntloana Tšoana, and Ha Makotoko. Together with AMS radiocarbon dates for fine-line Bushman (San) rock paintings within the same area, these assemblages now establish that hunter-gatherers did visit the Metolong stretch of the Phuthiatsana in both the mid-Holocene and—much more compellingly—during the last 1000 years. While agropastoralist settlements may have helped attract hunter-gatherers into the area in recent centuries, a clear contrast persists between the settlement records of the Lesotho and South African sides of the Caledon. A dynamic geomorphology able to erode and deposit substantial quantities of sediment within relatively brief periods of time in ways that filled, hid, or cleaned out rockshelters may help explain the continuing paucity of Holocene hunter-gatherer archaeology in the Phuthiatsana Valley between 8200 and 1000 BP.

Cooper’s D is a fossil locality in the Bloubank Valley close to other important sites such as Sterkfontein and Kromdraai in Gauteng, South Africa. The fossil deposits of Cooper’s D date to 1.38 ± 0.11 Ma. Hominins like Paranthropus robustus and early Homo have been recovered from Cooper’s Cave. We report here on the Equidae remains. Our sample contains specimens from the extinct Equus capensis, and a specimen which represents an extinct hipparion Eurygnathohippus cf. cornelianus . This particular specimen was previously identified as plains zebra ( Equus quagga ). The contribution of Equidae to the total fossil assemblage of Cooper’s D is relatively low, and these remains were likely accumulated by various predators such as spotted and brown hyenas and leopards. The Equidae, as well as the other fauna from Cooper’s D supports the existence of grassland, wooded and water components in the vicinity of the site.

This paper reports the analysis of the faunal remains recovered from re-excavation of Holocene Later Stone Age deposits at Moshebi’s Shelter, Lesotho. The assemblage includes a range of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and molluscs, but no domestic livestock. Some of the most common taxa, notably mole rats and vlei rats, are likely to be natural intrusions, but most of the others were probably hunted by the site’s hunter-gatherer occupants, with an emphasis on small- and medium-sized antelope and rock hyrax. Overall, the animals present reflect an open grassland environment with wooded microhabitats available in nearby valleys. Of the species identified, zebra was not observed in highland Lesotho in the nineteenth century, but is known there earlier in the Holocene. Bushpig, on the other hand, either suggests an enhanced presence of woodland or thicket vegetation relative to today, or contact