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New cosmogenic burial ages for Sterkfontein Member 2 Australopithecus and Member 5 Oldowan
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Journal Article
New cosmogenic burial ages for Sterkfontein Member 2 Australopithecus and Member 5 Oldowan
2015
Overview
Isochron burial dating with cosmogenic nuclides
26
Al and
10
Be shows that the skeleton of the australopithecine individual known as ‘Little Foot’ is around 3.67 million years old, coeval with early
Australopithecus
from East Africa; a manuport dated to 2.18 million years ago from the Oldowan tool assemblage conforms with the oldest age previously suggested by fauna.
An early date for 'Little Foot' australopithecine
The cave infillings at Sterkfontein in South Africa contain some of the richest assemblages of fossil hominins in the world. The problem with Sterkfontein and many caves like it is that it is notoriously difficult to date such sediments : they accumulate in a haphazard way with many episodes of deposition, erosion and reworking. Darryl Granger
et al
. use isochron burial dating with cosmogenic nuclides
26
Al and
10
Be to show that the breccia containing the substantially complete skeleton of the australopithecine individual known as 'Little Foot' is around 3.67 million years old, coeval with
Australopithecus afarensis
('Lucy') from East Africa. The earliest stone tools from Sterkfontein are dated to around 2.18 million years ago, a similar age to tools from nearby sites such as Swartkrans.
The cave infills at Sterkfontein contain one of the richest assemblages of
Australopithecus
fossils in the world, including the nearly complete skeleton StW 573 (‘Little Foot’)
1
,
2
,
3
,
4
in its lower section, as well as early stone tools
5
,
6
,
7
in higher sections. However, the chronology of the site remains controversial
8
,
9
,
10
,
11
,
12
,
13
,
14
owing to the complex history of cave infilling. Much of the existing chronology based on uranium–lead dating
10
,
11
and palaeomagnetic stratigraphy
8
,
12
has recently been called into question by the recognition that dated flowstones fill cavities formed within previously cemented breccias and therefore do not form a stratigraphic sequence
4
,
14
. Earlier dating with cosmogenic nuclides
9
suffered a high degree of uncertainty and has been questioned on grounds of sediment reworking
10
,
11
,
13
. Here we use isochron burial dating with cosmogenic aluminium-26 and beryllium-10 to show that the breccia containing StW 573 did not undergo significant reworking, and that it was deposited 3.67 ± 0.16 million years ago, far earlier than the 2.2 million year flowstones found within it
10
,
11
. The skeleton is thus coeval with early
Australopithecus afarensis
in eastern Africa
15
,
16
. We also date the earliest stone tools at Sterkfontein to 2.18 ± 0.21 million years ago, placing them in the Oldowan at a time similar to that found elsewhere in South Africa at Swartkans
17
and Wonderwerk
18
.
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group
