Taphonomy of ungulate ribs and the consumption of meat and bone by 1.2-million-year-old hominins at Olduvai Gorge,Tanzania

The phenomenon of equifinality complicates behavioral interpretations of faunal assemblages from contexts in which Pleistocene hominins are suspected bone accumulators. Stone tool butchery marks on ungulate fossils are diagnostic of hominin activities, but debate continues over the higher-order implications of butchered bones for the foraging capabilities of hominins. Additionally, tooth marks imparted on bones by hominins overlap in morphology and dimensions with those created by some non-hominin carnivores, further confounding our view of early hominins as meat-eating hunters, scavengers or both. We report on the manual/oral peeling of cortical layers of ungulate ribs as taphonomically diagnostic of hominoid/hominin meat- and bone-eating behavior that indicates access to large herbivore carcasses by hominins at the site of BK, Olduvai. Supporting these inferences, we show that certain types of rib peeling damage are very rare or completely unknown in faunas created by modern carnivores and African porcupines, but common in faunas modified by the butchery and/or consumption activities of modern humans and chimpanzees, during which these hominoids often grasp ribs with their hands, and then used their teeth to peel strips of cortex from raggedly chewed ends of the ribs. Carnivores consume ungulate ribcage tissues soon after kills, so diagnostic traces of hominin butchery/consumption on ribs (i.e., peeling and butchery marks) indicate early access to ungulate carcasses by BK hominins. Tooth marks associated with the peeling and butchery marks are probably hominin-derived, and may indicate that it was not uncommon for our ancestors to use their teeth to strip meat from and to consume portions of ribs. Recognition of rib peeling as a diagnostic signature of hominoid/hominin behavior may also aid the search for pre-archaeological traces of hominin meat-eating.     

‘Meddling with Politics’: The Political Role of Foreign Missions in the Early Nineteenth Century

The proper character of the relationship between missionaries and politics shaped one of the most contentious debates within the first century of the modern missionary movement. While the leadership of the missionary societies repeatedly insisted upon the separation between the work of the gospel and politics, missionaries in the field frequently found it difficult to remove themselves from political controversies. John Philip and James Read served with the London Missionary Society in the Cape Colony for most of the first half of the 19th century. Their persistent defence of the interests of the colonial Khoi made them controversial figures in the debates over the social, political and economic structures of the Cape Colony. Missionaries like Read and Philip, rarely described their activities as ‘political’, and certainly did not conceive of their work as in any way related to the patronage‐ridden political system of the early 19th century. Nonetheless, in their promotion of the ideas of religious and civil equality, and in their effective use of public opinion to shape government and public perception of colonial policy, their actions reflected many of the important changes taking place in contemporary British politics. Dissenting political activity focused on the issues of the defence of religious liberty, the struggle to secure their own civil equality, and the debate over the proper relationship between church and state. These issues also played a crucial role in colonial politics throughout the period. This essay will illustrate the important role of the foreign missionary movement in this process. Examining the work of Philip and Read enables us to identify the ways that issues of domestic politics helped to shape the political debates emerging in Britain's expanding empire.     

Popular,picture history: The confessions of a soi‐disant ’consultant’

The British Empire, 98‐part series; Time‐Life International in cooperation with the British Broadcasting Corporation, 1972–3. Consultants: D. K. Fieldhouse and A. F. Madden.     

The first record of a Maastrichtian ammonite from the Perth Basin,Western Australia,and its biostratigraphical significance

The first known ammonite from the Maastrichtian of the Perth Basin, a single, incomplete specimen of Grossouvrites gemmatus (Huppé, 1854), is described from core material from the Lancelin No. 1 borehole. Foraminiferal and nannoplankton evidence date the ammonite as middle Maastrichtian; its age is also assessed on the basis of dinoflagellate assemblages from this section, but these give a less precise dating. The position of the ammonite with respect to a mid-Maastrichtian disconformity, which probably extended along much of the Western Australian margin is discussed.