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)".
"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.
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also 7 Aves indet. | ||
Nesotragus moschatus | 3 | 3.7 kg browser |
Raphicerus campestris | 3 | 9.7 kg browser-grazer |
cf | ||
Sylvicapra grimmia | 3 | 13 kg browser-grazer |
also 16 Cephalophinae indet. and 250 Bovidae indet. | ||
Potamochoerus larvatus | 7 | 38 kg grazer-browser |
also 1 Suidae indet. | ||
Herpestes sanguineus | 1 | 465 g |
Civettictis civetta | 2 | 14 kg frugivore-insectivore |
"Viverra civetta", also 1 Carnivora indet. | ||
Pteropodidae indet. | 4 | |
Dendrohyrax validus | 53 | |
Lepus sp. | 2 | |
Macroscelididae indet. | 2 | |
"Rhynchocyon or Petrodromus" | ||
Equus quagga burchellii | 7 | 279 kg grazer |
cf | ||
Homo sapiens | 2 | 64 kg |
Piliocolobus kirkii | 3 | |
also 110 Cercopithecidae indet. | ||
Paragalago zanzibaricus | 2 | |
"Galago zanzibaricus" | ||
Cricetomys gambianus | 21 | 1.4 kg frugivore-granivore |
Hystrix cristata | 2 | 12 kg |
Sciuridae indet. | 2 | |
also 12 Rodentia indet. | ||
Varanus niloticus | 5 | |
also 2 Reptilia indet. "aff Varanus sp." | ||
Chelonia mydas | 2 | |
Serpentes indet. | 35 |