Kuumbi Cave (Trench 10, Phase 1b)
Basic information
Sample name: Kuumbi Cave (Trench 10, Phase 1b)

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: Holocene

Section: 3773

Unit number: 1

Unit order: above to below

Max Ma: 0.001479

Min Ma: 0.00059

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 1b dates to the Middle Iron Age, ranging from 1479 ± 23 to 590 ± 50 BP (c. 1370 to 540 cal. BP)".

Environment
Lithology: limestone

Taphonomic context: cave,human accumulation

Archaeology: ceramics,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: 452 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: 4053

Contributor: Benjamin Carter

Enterer: Benjamin Carter

Created: 2023-02-16 11:04:26

Modified: 2023-05-30 03:42:38

Abundance distribution
24 species
5 singletons
total count 452
geometric series index: 36.4
Fisher's α: 5.408
geometric series k: 0.7897
Hurlbert's PIE: 0.7183
Shannon's H: 1.9721
Good's u: 0.9890
Each square represents a species. Square sizes are proportional to counts.
Register
Galliformes indet.4
cf - also 6 Aves indet.
Nesotragus moschatus133.7 kg browser
Philantomba monticola134.3 kg frugivore-folivore
"Cephalophus monticola"
Cephalophus adersi1
Sylvicapra grimmia1013 kg browser-grazer
also 21 Cephalophinae indet. and 471 Bovidae indet.
Potamochoerus larvatus838 kg grazer-browser
also 1 Suidae indet.
Panthera pardus333 kg carnivore
Herpestes sanguineus4465 g carnivore-insectivore
also 3 Herpestidae indet.
Genetta sp.1
cf - also 1 Carnivora indet.
Pteropodidae indet.25
Dendrohyrax validus228
Lepus sp.1
Macroscelididae indet.8
"Rhynchocyon or Petrodromus"
Equus quagga burchellii6279 kg grazer
cf
Homo sapiens164 kg
Piliocolobus kirkii20
also 206 Cercopithecidae indet.
Otolemur crassicaudatus131.1 kg
Paragalago zanzibaricus5
"Galago zanzibaricus", also 6 Galagidae indet.
Cricetomys gambianus541.4 kg frugivore-granivore
Sciuridae indet.2
also 7 Rodentia indet.
Lacertilia indet.2
"small lizard": aff Agama agama
Serpentes indet.25
Chelonia mydas1
Testudinidae indet.4
"tortoise or terrapin", also 3 Reptilia indet.