ARCH 131 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: East African Rift, Olduvai Gorge, Lake Turkana
12 Apr 2016
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Document Summary
Most hominin fossils are found in south africa and east africa (tanzania) 6 early fossil hominin sites in south africa: taung (taung child fossil), sterkfontein, Kromdraai, swartkrans, malapa are 4 of the more famous ones. Sites are usually found in places that are composed with soft rocks e. g. limestones. Rainwater gathers in a puddle and gradually erodes the limestone to form crevices called dolinas. Sediments blow into these holes and fill up, animals fall in and die and this is where we find fossils. East african rift valley, runs up the east side of africa. Today it is very dry but it used to be a rainy place full of vegetation lots of years ago. Lots of hominin fossils are found here because many animals and hominins probably lived in the shores of rivers that flowed in rift valley. In these cases, sediments are soft and are dug quite easily and fossils are extracted easily.
