Kuumbi Cave (Trench 10, Phase 2)
Basic information
Sample name: Kuumbi Cave (Trench 10, Phase 2)

Reference: M. E. Prendergast, H. Rouby, P. Punnwong, R. Marchant, A. Crowther, N. Kourampas, C. Shipton, M. Walsh, K. Lambeck, and N. L. Boivin. 2016. Continental island formation and the archaeology of defaunation on Zanzibar, eastern Africa. PloS One 11(2):e0149565 [ER 3773]
Geography
Country: Tanzania

State: Zanzibar


Coordinate: 6° 21' 40" S, 39° 32' 33" E
Coordinate basis: stated in text

Time interval: Pleistocene - Holocene

Section: 3773

Unit number: 2

Unit order: above to below

Max Ma: 0.011082

Min Ma: 0.010069

Age basis: radiocarbon (uncalibrated)

Geography comments: "Kuumbi Cave is located in Kusini District, in the Unguja South Region of Tanzania. It is located near the southeastern coast of Unguja Island, part of the semi-autonomous province of Zanzibar, c. 2.5 km from the present day shoreline".
"Phase 2 dates to the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, from 11082 ± 37 to 10069 ± 32 BP (c. 13,040 to 11,340 cal. BP)".

Environment
Lithology: limestone

Taphonomic context: cave,human accumulation

Archaeology: bone tools,stone tools

Habitat comments: "Kuumbi is a large solutional cave, one of several in a series of Pleistocene-era marine terraces on limestone. Five main phases were identfied in the main trench: Phase 1a contains large limestone lithics and Swahili ceramics; Phase 1b contains the same lithics and earlier Tana Tradition/Triangular Incised Ware ceramics; Phase 2 does not contain any ceramics but includes Later Stone Age (LSA) bone projectile points and other bone tools and a quartz microlithic industry; Phase 3 contains similar LSA quartz and bone technologies; Phase 4 does not bear any unambiguous evidence of human occupation, but it does contain faunal remains, a few of which are burned".

Methods
Life forms: bats,carnivores,primates,rodents,ungulates,other large mammals,other small mammals,birds,lizards,snakes,turtles

Sampling methods: quarry,screenwash

Sample size: 163 specimens

Years: 2012

Sampling comments: "Four trenches were excavated in Kuumbi Cave during the Sealinks field season in 2012: Trench 10 was located in the upper main chamber. All deposits from Trench 10 were dry-sieved on site using 3 mm mesh, except for sub-samples of between 7–60L per context; these were bagged separately and processed by flotation to recover archaeobotanical remains and subsequently wet-sieved through 1mm mesh. The wet- and dry-sieved faunal samples (excluding land and marine molluscs and fish) were included in the analysis, for a total of 17.6 kg of tetrapod faunal remains".

Metadata
Sample number: 4054

Contributor: Benjamin Carter

Enterer: Benjamin Carter

Created: 2023-02-16 11:25:31

Modified: 2023-05-30 03:42:35

Abundance distribution
21 species
1 singleton
total count 163
geometric series index: 33.1
Fisher's α: 6.415
geometric series k: 0.8199
Hurlbert's PIE: 0.8225
Shannon's H: 2.2392
Good's u: 0.9945
Each square represents a species. Square sizes are proportional to counts.
Register
Galliformes indet.2
also 7 Aves indet.
Nesotragus moschatus33.7 kg browser
Raphicerus campestris39.7 kg browser-grazer
cf
Sylvicapra grimmia313 kg browser-grazer
also 16 Cephalophinae indet. and 250 Bovidae indet.
Potamochoerus larvatus738 kg grazer-browser
also 1 Suidae indet.
Herpestes sanguineus1465 g
Civettictis civetta214 kg frugivore-insectivore
"Viverra civetta", also 1 Carnivora indet.
Pteropodidae indet.4
Dendrohyrax validus53
Lepus sp.2
Macroscelididae indet.2
"Rhynchocyon or Petrodromus"
Equus quagga burchellii7279 kg grazer
cf
Homo sapiens264 kg
Piliocolobus kirkii3
also 110 Cercopithecidae indet.
Paragalago zanzibaricus2
"Galago zanzibaricus"
Cricetomys gambianus211.4 kg frugivore-granivore
Hystrix cristata212 kg
Sciuridae indet.2
also 12 Rodentia indet.
Varanus niloticus5
also 2 Reptilia indet. "aff Varanus sp."
Chelonia mydas2
Serpentes indet.35