Colorado State Anthropologist Finds Fossil Treasures In African Cave
Friday, October 10, 1997
FORT COLLINS--A day's work for Colorado State anthropologist
Diane Waddle can include encounters with deadly cobras,
excavations on steep walls using rock-climbing equipment and
traveling to fossil sites on roads so rough a kidney belt is
required.
But the treacherous conditions are worth the bounty Waddle
and two other anthropologists recently uncovered in a remote
limestone cave in Botswana, Africa: fossilized bones of thousands
of tiny bats, shrews, birds and frogs as well as a complete skull
of an adult primate and the jawbone of a juvenile primate
believed to be ancient ancestors of present-day baboons.
The vast collection of fossils is one of the few uncovered
in Botswana and contains well-preserved specimens of small
mammals that may have roamed the earth sometime between 100,000
and 3 million years ago. Most likely used by owls and other
mammals to eat their prey, the cave is so rich with fossils it's
called Bone Cave.
Waddle and the other researchers believe the find can help
fill the gap in the fossil record of Botswana, an area that has
not been a major focus for anthropologists or archaeologists in
recent years. Although there are numerous sites containing stone
tools in Botswana, the only human or primate remains from
Botswana are less than 10,000 years old and are fully modern.
Other fossils found in Botswana have been from the Middle Stone
Age, roughly 100,000 years and earlier.
"This is a great find because of the wealth of fossils in
the cave," Waddle said. "It's particularly important because
Botswana has virtually no fossil sites of this kind and there
really is no fossil record of primates at all. Many fossil sites
may only produce a few fossils.
"This is really impressive because it's like a big pile of
bones glued together."
Waddle said the main reason that not much is known about the
evolutionary history of this region is the remote location of the
caves; about an 11-hour drive from the nearest town. To get to
Bone Cave, the research team must rely on tire tracks from the
previous year's expedition, which often proves difficult. The
rainy season causes grasses to grow over the tracks and elephants
scar the road with footprints.
Using a grant from the National Geographic Society, Waddle
began making the trips to Bone Cave with anthropologists Callum
Ross of SUNY Stoney Brook University and Blythe Williams of Duke
University in 1994. Colorado State anthropology students Jodi
Laumer and Lawrence Steumke traveled to Africa with the team on
the most recent trip.
In the project's first two years, researchers took an
inventory of the cave and learned how to better navigate its
narrow passages, which serve as a link between two chambers where
the fossils are located. To get to the main chamber--called the
Drop Room--the research team must climb down a steep rubble slope
to a small opening measuring 4 feet across. The larger primate
bones are embedded in the steep rock walls and ceilings of the
Drop Room, making the fossils much more difficult to reach and
remove. To access these fossils, the research team dangles in
harnesses and other rock-climbing equipment as high as 15 feet
above the cave floor, carrying drills and other excavation tools.
The main chamber below the Drop Room, known as the atrium,
consists of spectacular stalactite formations. The atrium's
ceiling is covered with a rock matrix containing the bones of
small mammals.
To access the second chamber, Waddle and the others must
pass through a gauntlet of bats, bugs and critters, including
snakes.
During their most recent trip, Waddle and the other members
of the research team encountered a 5-foot long cobra inside the
cave. The team quickly crawled out of the cave to safety while
Ross drove to the nearest town six hours away to retrieve a
shotgun. Because he was the best shot of all the researchers in
the party, Steumke was charged with entering the cave and
shooting the snake. To celebrate restored peace, each member of
the research team ate a piece of the cobra, cooked to perfection
on an open fire.
"No one wanted to go back into that cave until we knew that
cobra was dead," Waddle joked.
Waddle will spend the next several months in the safety of
her lab at Colorado State separating the hard breccia from the
primate skull and other large bones taken from the site. The
technique involves coating exposed bone with a preservative and
soaking the specimens for several weeks in vinegar or other weak
acid to dissolve the calcium carbonates that hold the breccia
together. Once the specimens are restored, Waddle will take them
to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., for
identification, using its inventory of primate fossils to
determine whether they represent a new or existing species.
Portions of rock retrieved from the cave where the largest
bones were found will be sent to laboratories at the University
of Georgia for dating.
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