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1 SOM δ 13 C data for the Melikane samples showing depth from surface, mean, standard deviation and percentage of elemental carbon for each set of triplicate samples
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The Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains
are southern Africa’s highest and give rise to South Africa’s largest river, the Orange-Senqu. At Melikane Rockshelter
in highland Lesotho
(~1800 m a.s.l.), project AMEMSA (Adaptations to Marginal Environments in the Middle Stone Age) has documented a pulsed human presence since at least MIS 5. Melikane can be inter...
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Citations
... The SRZ shows a different picture in (late) MIS 3 with increasing numbers of sites, generally high occupation densities and many occupations in rock shelters and caves. These observations could be interpreted as a time-transgressive relocation of some populations from the more arid west to the wetter and more hospitable regions in the inland, eastern or even highland areas of southern Africa starting with the end of MIS 4 (see also Stewart et al., 2012Stewart et al., , 2016Wadley, 2015). This being said, research on recent and ancient DNA of southern Africa have reconstructed generally low (effective) population sizes for both the end of MIS 4 and most of MIS 3 (Lipson et al., 2022;Schlebusch et al., 2017Schlebusch et al., , 2020. ...
Southern Africa features an intensively studied Stone Age sequence, though one with geographical and temporal gaps. The archaeology of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 remains understudied, particularly between ~ 50 and 25 ka. This period encompasses important ecological, demographic and cultural changes, most notably the transition from Middle Stone Age (MSA) to Later Stone Age (LSA) technologies. In western South Africa, previous research postulated a demographic hiatus during the second half of MIS 3, potentially due to hyperarid climatic conditions. Here, we provide evidence of occupation during this period at Mertenhof Rock Shelter (MRS) in the form of new chronometric and technological data. OSL estimates suggest two pulses of low-intensity occupations at ~ 50 ka and 41–37 ka, allowing for a diachronic assessment of technological changes. These sporadic MSA occupations complement the more widespread occurrence of open-air settlements along the Doring River during ~ 50–35 ka. At MRS, knappers procured local rock types and produced small flakes and some laminar elements via platform, bipolar and Levallois reduction. The retouched elements feature splintered pieces and denticulates but mostly lack points. Differences to contemporaneous sites in eastern southern Africa underscore ongoing technological regionalisation and demographic partitioning during MIS 3. The temporal changes in the sequence show some antecedents of Early LSA technological systems, which appear in the region around 25 ka, but not in a unidirectional manner. Lithic and chronometric evidence from MRS supports scenarios of a long MSA persistence within MIS 3 in southern Africa and a late emergence of the LSA sometime after 35 ka.
... The archaeology of the broader Drakensberg is relatively well-studied (Carter 1970(Carter , 1978Mitchell 1994Mitchell , 1996aStewart et al. 2016;Stewart & Mitchell 2018). In particular, the highlands of the Drakensberg have been a key area of interest since the nineteenth century (Orpen 1874;Jenkins 2019). ...
... Earlier studies of the Eastern Cape and Drakensberg region tended to focus on seasonality and mobility between the coast and the interior (Carter 1970(Carter , 1976Deacon 1976;Cable 1982;Mitchell 1996a). Stewart et al. (2016), however, argue that the Senqu/Orange River Valley was a key route for social networks and seasonal mobility, and OES bead distribution patterns seem to support this. Analyses of strontium isotope ratios of OES beads from sites in the Drakensberg and Lesotho highlands indicate that these beads probably originated from geological formations occurring in the more water-stressed subcontinental interior (Stewart et al. 2020). ...
The broader Drakensberg is an important region for understanding population dynamics and adaptation between the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. Here, we announce our campaign to re-excavate Strathalan Cave in the northeastern Cape of South Africa. Strathalan Cave sits at the foothills of the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg at the edge of the Great Escarpment of southern Africa. Well-known for its organic preservation, the site is important for understanding the archaeology of the region. People have occupied Strathalan Cave intermittently from ca. 29 000 years ago (ka), so exploring occupational patterns at sites such as these is a valuable means of understanding Stone Age behaviour during glacial Marine Isotope Stage 2 (ca. 29-14 ka). In this paper, we provide the first detailed description of the geological, geomorphological, sedimentary and environmental context of Strathalan Cave and review previous studies conducted on the site and region. We also introduce the goals of our re-excavation project and present a detailed map of the three cavities that make up the Strathalan Cave complex as part of a new, comprehensive, spatial control system established on site. Given the remarkable preservation of organic materials, Strathalan Cave may provide an important and rare source of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental data for this period. Future work at Strathalan will likely contribute to our understanding of the links between settlement patterns and environmental change. This is especially important given that Strathalan sits at the juncture between different environmental and geographic regions.
... With reference to the first point, we have argued previously that Lesotho's highlands-and the Maloti-Drakensberg region more generally-were an enduring focus for hunter-gatherer populations within southeastern southern Africa. Temporal patterning in radiocarbon dates shows repeated occupation of highland Lesotho during more arid periods and less stable climatic episodes (Stewart, Parker, et al. 2016;Stewart and Mitchell 2018). As well as higher, more reliable precipitation (and thus richer, more dependable plant and animal resources), the Maloti-Drakensberg offered abundant natural shelter, high quality stone raw materials, substantial fisheries, and (because of their broken topography) greater overall resource diversity per unit area. ...
Ostrich eggshell beads are some of the smallest artefacts recovered from archaeological sites in southern Africa, but are among those that moved furthest and have endured longest. Manufactured in the region over a period of at least 40,000 years, they were exchanged over hundreds of kilometers for nearly as long, as recently demonstrated by strontium isotope analysis. Those worn by contemporary foragers in the Kalahari Desert go far beyond the aesthetic to symbolize the very social fabric in which their wearers are enmeshed, networks whose contours, magnitudes, and efficacies can be expected to have changed through time and space. Southeastern southern Africa is particularly well suited to exploring such variability because much of it lies outside the ostrich’s natural range; beads found there must therefore have been imported from elsewhere. In this paper, we consider which intangible qualities may have made these ornaments attractive to their wearers, especially in regions where ostriches are not endemic. We then explore the spatial and temporal dynamics of bead circulation across southeastern southern Africa and compare them to those of other material proxies for hunter-gatherer exchange networks in the region. A case is made that the body adorned with ostrich eggshell beads is the body enveloped in multi-layered social – and potent supernatural – relationships.
... AMEMSA's 14 C and OSL dates (pink), Bousman Index values (% C 3 , green), tree cover density ratio values (D/P, blue), and 13 C isotope values (red). Spits within contexts are designated by tick marks on the left (data from Stewart et al., 2016) Vegetation composition in the Lesotho highlands is largely determined by temperature, and thus correlates with altitude and aspect (Ehleringer et al., 1997;Patalano et al., 2023;Vogel, 1983). Higher altitudes host primarily C 3 plants, whereas lower altitudes favor C 4 -dominant communities (Vogel, 1983). ...
... Higher altitudes host primarily C 3 plants, whereas lower altitudes favor C 4 -dominant communities (Vogel, 1983). Melikane is surrounded primarily by C 4 vegetation today, but soil organic matter (SOM) δ 13 C values from the site suggest that C 3 grasses dominated the local landscape throughout the site's late Pleistocene sequence (Stewart et al., 2016). Four SOM and phytolith samples were taken from Melikane's ~27-23 ka levels at depth increments of 10 cm, corresponding to contexts 6-8:3, 6-8:1, 5:3, and 5:1 ( Fig. 4; Table 3). ...
... Four SOM and phytolith samples were taken from Melikane's ~27-23 ka levels at depth increments of 10 cm, corresponding to contexts 6-8:3, 6-8:1, 5:3, and 5:1 ( Fig. 4; Table 3). The ratio of woody to grass phytolith types (D/P ratio) falls to its lowest point in the entire sequence in samples MLK4 and MLK5 (contexts 6-8), reflecting a treeless, open grassland landscape (Stewart et al., 2016). Slightly higher D/P ratios in MLK 2 and MLK3 are still lower than values from most other occupation pulses (Stewart et al., 2016). ...
Melikane, a large sandstone rockshelter in the Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains of highland Lesotho, preserves an 80,000-year-old archaeological sequence including an occupation pulse dated to the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), ~27–23 kcal BP. Paleoenvironmental proxies indicate that temperature depressions of ~6 °C below present values provoked changes in vegetation distribution around the site. The onset of the LGM also coincides with a global shift towards microlithization, expressed in southern Africa as the Later Stone Age Robberg bladelet industry. Bousman and Brink’s (Quaternary International 495:116–135, 2018) rapid replacement hypothesis asserts that this technocomplex was adopted nearly simultaneously across the subcontinent ~24 ka cal BP, replacing the Early Later Stone Age technologies that preceded it. An alternative model, which we term the LGM acceleration hypothesis, suggests that the Robberg developed slowly as existing technologies were modified and expanded to function flexibly in a variety of LGM environments. In this paper, we test these hypotheses at Melikane through attribute and morphometric analyses of > 17,000 lithic artifacts. Intrasite continuities and gradual, asynchronous changes in flaking systems are inconsistent with rapid replacement. Instead, the subtle refinement of bladelet reduction strategies alongside climate shifts and a reorganization of mobility and settlement systems supports our LGM acceleration hypothesis. However, Melikane’s combination of highland-specific idiosyncrasies and shared flaking systems with sites in less marginal environments suggests a complex role for cultural transmission. We suggest that periodic isolation throughout the LGM encouraged the development of new flaking systems, the most flexible of which were adopted in a variety of environments when biogeographic barriers to transmission were lifted.
... Redistribution of food resources will often drive the movement of human and nonhuman animals differently through montane environments. As such, one argument states that seasonal variability in resource abundance will influence the mobility of past peoples throughout Afromontane regions (Stewart & Mitchell, 2018a;Stewart et al., 2016). Although highland Lesotho's rich archaeological record demonstrates humans' episodic use of this region over the past 100,000 years (e.g., Bousman, 1988;Mitchell & Vogel, 1994;Mitchell, 1996aMitchell, , 2009Stewart et al., 2012), with traces of earlier activity extending back into at least the late Middle Pleistocene (Carter, 1978), to date, there have been few attempts to survey (or source) the region's diverse knappable rocks. ...
... These results complicate assumptions about the relationship between paleotemperature and mobility strategies, contributing to debates about climatic change's role in prehistoric mobility patterns in Lesotho (cf. Mitchell, 1995;Stewart & Mitchell, 2018a, 2018bStewart et al., 2016). In the following sections, we introduce Lesotho's landscape and geology and the archaeological assemblage from Sehonghong. ...
... Its topographic and climatic variability and rich archaeological record provide a unique opportunity to examine the relationship between montane environments, stone procurement patterns, and mobility strategies across much of the Later Pleistocene (22-11 ka cal. BP) and Holocene ( Fig. 1) (Stewart et al., 2016). Eastern Lesotho possesses a relatively simple geological structure dominated by ancient Lower Jurassic period ca. ...
Archaeologists have long considered climate change a primary mechanism behind human behavioral adaptations. The Lesotho highlands’ Afromontane and climatically extreme environments offer a unique opportunity to examine proposed correlations between topography, climate, and human behavior. Previous studies suggest that warmer temperatures allowed humans to expand their diet breadth and foraging range, whereas colder temperatures restricted humans to resources in riverine corridors. These studies used faunal and floral change as proxies to track changes in forager mobility but did not consider how differential access to stone resources affected human behaviors. To account for this gap, we conducted a survey for knappable rocks around the Sehonghong rock shelter in eastern Lesotho, recording the materials present and their size and shape in the modern environment. We compared the survey results to later Pleistocene (~ 22–11 ka cal. BP) lithic assemblages at Sehonghong to better understand whether archaeological patterns match modern knappable rock availability. Contrary to previous hypotheses, we find that past peoples at Sehonghong were not limited to exclusively riverine resources during colder conditions. We then used flake-to-core and noncortical-to-cortical flake ratios to track changes in mobility and knappable rock procurement patterns. The ratios remain constant up until the Late Glacial, ca. 14 ka cal. BP, when we see an increase in both flake-to-core and noncortical-to-cortical ratios, suggesting increased movement of stone out of Sehonghong. These conclusions show that resource procurement and mobility patterns are not solely dependent on climate change but may be driven by more complicated causal mechanisms such as increased interaction and the formation of social networks across the Lesotho highlands and beyond.
... Valley (Ehleringer et al., 1997). However, phytoliths and soil organic matter (SOM) from the site's early LGM deposits suggest that C 3 grasses heavily dominated the local landscape (Stewart et al., 2016) (Fig. 3). ...
... The top sample in Layer 4 (context 5, spit 1) produced the highest Bousman Index values of the sequence, suggesting an environment with >95% C 3 grasses. The C 4 grasses that remained were drought-tolerant chloridoids (Stewart et al., 2016;Twiss, 1992). The tree cover density ratio (D/P ratio), de ned as the proportion of woody to grassy phytolith morphotypes, plunged to its lowest point in the Melikane sequence in Layer 5 (contexts 6-8) and rose slightly in Layer 4 (context 5) (Stewart et al., 2016). ...
... The C 4 grasses that remained were drought-tolerant chloridoids (Stewart et al., 2016;Twiss, 1992). The tree cover density ratio (D/P ratio), de ned as the proportion of woody to grassy phytolith morphotypes, plunged to its lowest point in the Melikane sequence in Layer 5 (contexts 6-8) and rose slightly in Layer 4 (context 5) (Stewart et al., 2016). This suggests a relatively barren landscape on the eve of the LGM, with tree cover increasing incrementally over time alongside the expansion of C 3 grasses. ...
Melikane, a large sandstone rockshelter in the Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains of highland Lesotho, preserves an 80,000 year-old archaeological sequence including two layers (4 & 5) dated to the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), ~ 24 kcal BP. Paleoenvironmental proxies indicate that these layers were associated with increasing aridification and changes in resource distribution. An analysis of > 17,000 lithic artifacts combining attribute and morphometric approaches reveals that these environmental changes occurred alongside the adoption of Later Stone Age (LSA) Robberg bladelet technology at the site (Layer 4), which developed out of an early microlithic industry we classify as “incipient Robberg” (Layer 5). We argue that the accelerated implementation and standardization of bladelet technology in Layer 4 was the consequence of modifying and expanding existing technologies to function in a high-stakes LGM environment. While intrasite continuities and gradual changes in flaking systems at Melikane are inconsistent with the Robberg’s arrival via population replacement or migration (cf. Bousman and Brink, 2018), shared flaking systems with penecontemporary sites also implicate a role for cultural transmission in the Robberg’s development and demand an alternate explanation for its use in nonmarginal environments. We attribute its adoption in southern Africa more broadly to the extraordinary flexibility of bladelet technology and an ongoing cycle of connectivity and isolation throughout the LGM, encouraging the development of new flaking systems and their subsequent coalescence and diffusion.
... Traditionally in southern African LSA research, the coastal zones have been viewed as the main source of populations moving inland to the mountainous regions (e.g. Carter 1978;Parkington 1972;Compton 2011), but few models develop the dynamics of population movement in the interior (though see Beaumont 1986;Deacon 1974;Sampson 1985;Stewart et al. 2016;Mitchell 2017). Research in the Tankwa Karoo begins to address this by showing different behavioural patterns between the Cape Fold Belt and Karoo zones, with ephemeral use of the eastern Tankwa basin pointing towards movement further east to the Roggeveld Escarpment. ...
The Late Pleistocene and Holocene settlement record of southern Africa shows clear discontinuities both through time and across space. While there is considerable variability between different ecological biomes, the sub-continent’s interior arid zones show particularly unstable occupation histories. However, understanding the nature of and reasons for these discontinuities is hampered by substantial spatial gaps in our archaeological knowledge. This paper presents evidence from the Tankwa Karoo region — intermediate between the well-studied Western Cape Cederberg Mountains and the interior Upper Karoo — to capture Later Stone Age (LSA) behaviour at the interface between Cape and Karoo environments. Off-site surveys recorded surface artefacts across a 100 km-long study area, documenting LSA settlement at a landscape scale and testing expected patterns against settlement records of regions to the west and east. The results indicate that in contrast to the strongly pulsed occupation evidence from the Cederberg Mountains and the Upper Karoo, no LSA phases show particularly high site densities or sustained use of longer-term sites. Additionally, the most arid parts of the eastern Tankwa Karoo show very limited LSA evidence. This suggests that this marginal environment was occupied only ephemerally during the LSA, potentially serving as a corridor between more reliably resourced regions.
... The latter, based on the DMV2 date, could be contemporary with an extensive red palaeosol described 11 km downstream at Erfkroon, and dated to~33 ka (Lyons et al. 2014;Bousman, Brink, et al. 2023). Taking into account the possibility that part of the surface assemblage might belong to the earlier Robberg technocomplex, which needs to remain open until a detailed examination of the full lithic assemblage is available, it appears that the Damvlei data do not support a scenario of permanent human presence in the interior grasslands during the terminal Pleistocene, and especially during the LGM, and that occupation before the Holocene might have been only ephemeral and limited to some of the Florisian wetlands along rivers, such as the Modder (Brink 2016;Mitchell 2017;Bousman, Brink, et al. 2023), whereas permanent presence was confined to the better-watered highlands towards the east (Stewart et al. 2016;Stewart & Mitchell 2018). ...
The Modder River basin has been the focus of extensive surveys followed by targeted excavations of specific erosional gullies (known locally as dongas), where Middle and Later Stone Age artefacts and fossils are abundant. At Damvlei, a donga located on the left bank of the Modder, lithic artefacts and fossils were observed in the 1990s. Here, we present the results of two seasons of fieldwork (2019/21) at this locality, as well as unpublished surface faunal remains collected in 1995/96. Damvlei formed as a result of overbank deposition of the Modder River, as indicated by micromorphological analysis. The accumulation of the sedimentary sequence beneath the artefact-bearing levels started at 27 ± 3 ka at the earliest, based on optically stimulated luminescence dating. Artefacts, faunal remains, and phytoliths show that the site is characterised by Holocene Later Stone Age technology in an open-grassland environment typical of the terminal Florisian Land Mammal Age. Damvlei expands our knowledge of the Later Stone Age in the western Free State, and highlights the need for more extensive dating programmes aimed at framing human occupation in the central interior of South Africa.
... Approximately 80 specimens of charcoal (Stewart et al., 2016) were analysed from two layers from each member, except from Members 5 BS and 4 WA where more layers were examined (Table 1). Standard anthracological methods were applied to identify the charcoal (see for example Figueiral and Mossbruger, 2000;Allott, 2006;Th ery-Parisot et al., 2010;Cartwright, 2013;Backwell et al., 2014;Bamford, 2015a, b;Stewart et al., 2016;King and Dotte-Sarout, 2018;Bodin et al., 2020;Henry et al., 2020). ...
... Approximately 80 specimens of charcoal (Stewart et al., 2016) were analysed from two layers from each member, except from Members 5 BS and 4 WA where more layers were examined (Table 1). Standard anthracological methods were applied to identify the charcoal (see for example Figueiral and Mossbruger, 2000;Allott, 2006;Th ery-Parisot et al., 2010;Cartwright, 2013;Backwell et al., 2014;Bamford, 2015a, b;Stewart et al., 2016;King and Dotte-Sarout, 2018;Bodin et al., 2020;Henry et al., 2020). Border Cave specimens were selected for identification by means of random sampling within each sample using random number tables (Drennan, 2009). ...
Border Cave is a key Middle Stone Age (MSA) site in southern Africa, with a 4 m-deep sedimentary sequence that dates from more than 227 000 (227 ka) to 44 ka ago. Lithic assemblages vary considerably during this period and artefacts made from organic materials become common at the end of the MSA sequence. Here we describe charcoal from the 10 members that comprise the stratigraphic sequence. Anatomical features of charcoal were studied by means of reflected light microscopy, the use of the International Association of Wood Anatomists code and modern wood charcoal reference collections. Most woody plants represented by charcoal at the site are evergreen trees. Indicator plants from bushveld and open woodland taxa were most common in Member 6 BS (>227 ka) and Member 5 WA (~227 ka). Moist forest was most common in Members 5 BS (~161e144 ka) and 4 WA (~168e113 ka), while Member 1 RGBS (~74 ka) had a combination of bushveld and moist forest. At about 64 ka, dry bushveld predominated, while in Members 3 BS (72e56 ka) and 2 WA (~60 ka) moist forest was the predominant vegetation type. Member 2 BS.UP (49e44 ka) mostly included bushveld and moist forest patches, while Member 1 WA (~43 ka) was predominantly dry bushveld. The Border Cave occupations seem to have taken place in drier conditions than those at present. The driest members were 5 BS, 4 WA, 1 RGBS and 3 WA, followed by Members 2 BS and 1 WA. Member 3 BS was only slightly drier than present, while Member 2 WA was moderately drier than present. The past vegetation is similar to the modern vegetation profile and there appears to have been remarkable stability through time, suggesting that cultural changes in the sequence may not be linked to environmental change.
... This period is marked by the abandonment of sites in the southern Cape with continued or increased occupation in the interior and near the eastern coast of southern Africa Wadley 2015;Wurz 2019). Sites include Border Cave (d'Errico et al. 2012;Villa et al. 2012), Boomplaas Cave (Mitchell 2008;Pargeter et al. 2018), GRS (Opperman 1984(Opperman , 1987(Opperman , 1988Collins et al. 2017;Ames et al. 2020), Ha Makotoko (Mitchell & Arthur 2014), Melikane (Stewart et al. 2012;Stewart et al. 2016), Ntloana Tšoana (Mitchell & Steinberg 1992;Jacobs et al. 2008), Rose Cottage Cave (Wadley 1997(Wadley , 2004, Sehonghong (Mitchell 1994;Pargeter et al. 2017), Sibudu Cave (Wadley et al. 2011;Conard et al. 2012), Strathalan B (Opperman & Heydenrych 1990;Opperman 1992Opperman , 1996, and Waterfall Bluff (Fisher et al. 2020). Occupational shifts likely occurred due to the onset of hyperarid conditions in the southern Cape, however, rising sea levels may have resulted in flooding at these sites Wurz 2019). ...
... During MIS 2, only a few interior sites are occupied in the southern African (Opperman & Heydenrych 1990;Opperman 1992Opperman , 1996Deacon 1995;Mitchell 1996aMitchell , 2013Wadley 1997;Mitchell & Arthur 2014;Stewart et al. 2016;Pargeter et al. 2017Pargeter et al. , 2018Loftus et al. 2019). No occupation is recorded at GRS between 28 and 13.5 ka, roughly coinciding with Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 2 (29-14 ka) (Ames et al. 2020). ...
The adoption of Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) provides an alternative approach to traditional morphological and ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis, allowing previously unidentifiable and morphologically ambiguous remains to be identified. Dietary preferences are reflected in the stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios, with variations indicating behavioural, physiological, and/or environmental change. Together, fauna identified by ZooMS and stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes has the potential to provide more information about vegetation and palaeoenvironmental change than either dataset alone.
This study focuses on the morphologically unidentifiable faunal assemblage from
Grassridge Rockshelter (GRS), South Africa. Ten samples were selected from the late Pleistocene (LP; ca. 43–28 ka), 20 from the terminal Pleistocene (TP; ca. 13.5–11.6 ka), and 70 from the mid-Holocene (MH; ca. 7.3–6.8 ka) layers. Here, fauna identified by ZooMS and stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes from bone collagen is used to infer the palaeoenvironmental conditions at GRS during each occupation.
Eighty-five percent (n = 85) of the GRS sample was successfully identified to at least tribe using ZooMS. Success increased through time, but not significantly, suggesting that ZooMS can be used on older assemblages, up to ca. 40 ka, and in warm environments.
Faunal and stable isotope shifts are documented and are indicative of changing vegetation and palaeoenvironment through time. At GRS, results indicate a cool and dry grassland environment dominated by open-habitat grazers during the LP, transitioning to a warmer and mesic mosaic environment dominated by browsers during the MH. Broad taxonomic resolutions and the misidentification of a suni antelope (Neotragus moschatus) indicate a need for the development of novel ZooMS peptide markers, the expansion of the reference database, and emphasise the need to incorporate multiple proxies when undertaking palaeoenvironmental research. Furthermore, the identification of a blue duiker (Philantomba monticola) and ostrich (Struthio camelus) was unexpected, highlighting the potential of ZooMS to identify rare or unexpected taxa.
