Large ungulate mortality profiles and ambush hunting by Acheulean-age hominins at Elandsfontein, Western Cape Province, South Africa

摘要

At Elandsfontein, a Middle Pleistocene marsh deposit preserves an abundance of mammalian fossils, along with a partial cranium of Homo heidelbergensis and a significant number of Acheulean stone tools. Most of this material was collected from the surface of eroding deposits in the 20th century, and it seemed to derive from a combination of hominin foraging activities and other, natural processes. Prior archaeological research on the fossil collection has emphasized natural, carnivore -related mortality and accumulation of large ungulates and downplayed the potential role of hominin hunting or scavenging at the marsh and more broadly at this time period in human evolution (Klein et al., 2007).