Kromdraai (means crooked turn in

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) is a fossil-bearing breccia-filled cave located about east of the well-known South African hominid-bearing site of Sterkfontein and about northwest of

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. It is situated within the Cradle of Humankind

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and is itself a South African National Heritage Site.

History of investigations

In 1938, the site was brought to the attention of

Robert Broom Robert Broom FRS FRSE (30 November 1866 6 April 1951) was a British- South African doctor and palaeontologist. He qualified as a medical practitioner in 1895 and received his DSc in 1905 from the University of Glasgow. From 1903 to 1910, he ...

by a local schoolboy named Gert Terrblanche who had discovered several hominin teeth. The teeth formed part of a skull that would become the

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

of ''

Paranthropus robustus ''Paranthropus robustus'' is a species of robustness (morphology), robust australopithecine from the Early Pleistocene, Early and possibly Middle Pleistocene, Middle Pleistocene of the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa, about 2.27 to 0.87 (or, mo ...

''. Broom began excavations at the site that would continue until approximately 1947 and would result in the discovery of numerous hominin remains. Two deposits were noted and named at the site — Kromdraai A (KA) and Kromdraai B (KB)— the latter being the site where the hominin remains were recovered. In 1955 C.K. Brain recommenced work at Kromdraai B and discovered numerous additional hominin remains as well as abundant non-hominin fauna. In the 1980s

Elizabeth Vrba Elisabeth S. Vrba (born 17 May 1942) is a paleontologist at Yale University who developed the turnover-pulse hypothesis. Education Vrba earned her Ph.D. in Zoology and Palaeontology at the University of Cape Town, in 1974. Vrba studied zoolog ...

briefly conducted excavations at Kromdraai B in order to recover additional samples for her work on South African bovids. In 1993 excavations were re-opened by Francis Thackeray of the Transvaal Museum and Lee Berger of the

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( o ...

and are currently ongoing. Thackeray and Berger were later joined by teams from

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and other collaborators. Important results of this work have been the recovery of additional hominin fossils as well as the obtaining of more accurate dates for the site.

Recovered fossils

Besides the holotype specimen of ''P. robustus'', at the time of the writing of this article 29 hominin specimens had been recovered from Kromdraai B. Many thousands of animal fossils have also been recovered from both Kromdraai A and B. By 2014, the Kromdraai B fossil assemblages totaled 6,067 specimens.

Age of the deposits

Kromdraai B is dated to between approximately 2.0 - 1.6 Ma with the majority if not all the ''

'' fossils dating to between 1.8 and 1.6 Ma.

Geology

Kromdraai is a roofless

dolomite Dolomite may refer to: *Dolomite (mineral), a carbonate mineral *Dolomite (rock), also known as dolostone, a sedimentary carbonate rock *Dolomite, Alabama, United States, an unincorporated community *Dolomite, California, United States, an unincor ...

cave on the southern side of Blaauwbank stream. Kromdraai is contained within the Cradle of Humankind and is approximately east of the Sterkfontein fossil site. It consists of two fossil-bearing localities, Kromdraai A (KA) and Kromdraai B (KB). KA is located to the south of KB. KB is the main fossil deposit at the Kromdraai site. The boundaries of both localities are lined by dolomite.

References

{{Navbox prehistoric caves Archaeological sites in South Africa Caves of South Africa Limestone caves Landforms of Gauteng Paleoanthropological sites Pleistocene paleontological sites of Africa South African heritage sites Archaeological sites of Southern Africa

History of investigations

Recovered fossils

Age of the deposits

Geology

See also

References