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)".
"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.
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Register
Galliformes indet. | 4 | |
cf - also 6 Aves indet. | ||
Nesotragus moschatus | 13 | 3.7 kg browser |
Philantomba monticola | 13 | 4.3 kg frugivore-folivore |
"Cephalophus monticola" | ||
Cephalophus adersi | 1 | |
Sylvicapra grimmia | 10 | 13 kg browser-grazer |
also 21 Cephalophinae indet. and 471 Bovidae indet. | ||
Potamochoerus larvatus | 8 | 38 kg grazer-browser |
also 1 Suidae indet. | ||
Panthera pardus | 3 | 33 kg carnivore |
Herpestes sanguineus | 4 | 465 g carnivore-insectivore |
also 3 Herpestidae indet. | ||
Genetta sp. | 1 | |
cf - also 1 Carnivora indet. | ||
Pteropodidae indet. | 25 | |
Dendrohyrax validus | 228 | |
Lepus sp. | 1 | |
Macroscelididae indet. | 8 | |
"Rhynchocyon or Petrodromus" | ||
Equus quagga burchellii | 6 | 279 kg grazer |
cf | ||
Homo sapiens | 1 | 64 kg |
Piliocolobus kirkii | 20 | |
also 206 Cercopithecidae indet. | ||
Otolemur crassicaudatus | 13 | 1.1 kg |
Paragalago zanzibaricus | 5 | |
"Galago zanzibaricus", also 6 Galagidae indet. | ||
Cricetomys gambianus | 54 | 1.4 kg frugivore-granivore |
Sciuridae indet. | 2 | |
also 7 Rodentia indet. | ||
Lacertilia indet. | 2 | |
"small lizard": aff Agama agama | ||
Serpentes indet. | 25 | |
Chelonia mydas | 1 | |
Testudinidae indet. | 4 | |
"tortoise or terrapin", also 3 Reptilia indet. |