Kuumbi Cave (Trench 10, Phase 3)
Basic information
Sample name: Kuumbi Cave (Trench 10, Phase 3)
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° 22' 40" S, 40° 33' 33" E
Latlng basis: stated in text
Time interval: Late Pleistocene
Section: 3773
Unit number: 3
Unit order: above to below
Max Ma: 0.01546
Min Ma: 0.014221
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 3 dates to the Late Pleistocene, from 15460 ± 65 to 14221 ± 62 BP (c. 18, 830 to 17, 080 cal. BP)".
"Phase 3 dates to the Late Pleistocene, from 15460 ± 65 to 14221 ± 62 BP (c. 18, 830 to 17, 080 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, snakes
Excluded forms: fishes, clams, snails
Sampling methods: quarry, screenwash
Sample size: 288 specimens
Years: 2012
Net or trap nights: 0
Basal area status: not applicable
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 no: 4055
Contributor no: Benjamin Carter
Enterer: Benjamin Carter
Created: 2023-02-16 11:42:13
Modified: 2023-05-30 03:42:34
Abundance distribution
Each square represents a species. Square sizes are proportional to counts. Values are logged.
Statistics
25 species
9 singletons
total count 288
geometric series index: 49.2
Fisher's α: 6.575
geometric series k: 0.8228
Hurlbert's PIE: 0.8012
Shannon's H: 2.1539
Good's u: 0.9688
Register
| Galliformes indet. | 1 | |
| also 3 Aves indet. | ||
| Nesotragus moschatus (suni) | 19 | 3.7 kg |
| Raphicerus campestris (steenbok) | 1 | 9.7 kg |
| Cephalophus adersi (Aders's duiker) | 1 | |
| Sylvicapra grimmia (common duiker) | 1 | 13.0 kg |
| cf - also 102 Cephalophinae indet. | ||
| Tragelaphus scriptus (harnessed bushbuck) | 4 | 31.0 kg |
| Redunca redunca (Bohor reedbuck) | 7 | 44.0 kg |
| Kobus ellipsiprymnus (waterbuck) | 7 | 210.0 kg |
| cf "Kobus defassa" | ||
| Syncerus caffer (African buffalo) | 2 | 548.0 kg |
| also 738 Bovidae indet. | ||
| Potamochoerus larvatus (bushpig) | 6 | 38.0 kg |
| also 10 Suidae indet. | ||
| Panthera pardus (leopard) | 3 | |
| Ichneumia albicauda | 1 | 3.4 kg |
| cf | ||
| Civettictis civetta | 3 | |
| cf "Viverra civetta", also 1 Carnivora indet. | ||
| Pteropodidae indet. | 10 | |
| Dendrohyrax validus (eastern tree hyrax) | 108 | |
| Macroscelididae indet. | 1 | |
| "Rhynchocyon or Petrodromus" | ||
| Equus quagga burchellii (plains zebra) | 55 | |
| cf - also 27 Equidae indet. | ||
| Homo sapiens (human) | 1 | 64.0 kg |
| Piliocolobus kirkii (Zanzibar red colobus) | 7 | |
| also 30 Cercopithecidae indet. | ||
| Otolemur crassicaudatus (brown greater galago) | 2 | 1.1 kg |
| Paragalago zanzibaricus (Zanzibar bushbaby) | 2 | |
| "Galago zanzibaricus" | ||
| Cricetomys gambianus | 16 | 1.4 kg |
| Sciuridae indet. | 1 | |
| also 103 Rodentia indet. | ||
| Crocidura sp. | 1 | |
| Serpentes indet. | 28 | |