Tara R EdwardsUniversity of Cape Town | UCT · Department of Geological Sciences
Tara R Edwards
PhD
About
8
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Introduction
I am a geologist working on cave deposits from the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa. I am currently working on the first high-resolution palaeoclimate record for the region to provide new insights into how climatic and environmental shifts influenced the evolution of our early human ancestors.
Skills and Expertise
Additional affiliations
January 2016 - January 2019
Publications
Publications (8)
Waypoint 160 is a paleocave at Bolt's Farm in the 'Cradle of Humankind,' South Africa. It is known for the novel murid taxa Eurotomys bolti, argued to be morphologically intermediate between Eurotomys pelomyoides from Langebaanweg (∼5.1 Ma) and the earliest Otomyinae from Makapansgat Limeworks (∼3.0-2.6 Ma). Based on the presence of this specimen,...
Caves in South Africa preserve a rich record of early hominin and early modern human development and have been the subject of much research. UPb dating of speleothems, particularly flowstones, has provided a much-needed chronology for cave sites in the Cradle of Humankind, the coastal cliff caves at Pinnacle Point and at the archaeological site of...
The region ∼40 km north-west of Johannesburg, South Africa, known locally as the Cradle of Humankind, is of global significance as the caves preserve Plio-Pleistocene faunal and early hominin fossils. Despite a long history of research, there is still a need to contextualise and date the remarkable collection of fossils. An important but understudi...
Dating the Drimolen hominins
Fossil hominins from South Africa are enriching the story of early human evolution and dispersal. Herries et al. describe the geological context and dating of the hominin-bearing infilled cave, or palaeocave, at a site called Drimolen in South Africa (see the Perspective by Antón). They focus on the age and context of a...
Bolt’s Farm is a series of fossil bearing active caves and palaeokarst remnants in the Cradle of Humankind, Gauteng, which has been explored for palaeontological remains since the 1940s. An early Pliocene age of 5-4 Ma was suggested for one deposit at Bolt’s Farm, Waypoint 160, based on the discovery of a new species of rodent Euryotomys bolti (Sen...
Bolt’s Farm is a Plio-Pleistocene fossil site located within the southwestern corner of the UNESCO Hominid Fossil Sites of South Africa World Heritage Site. The site is a complex of active caves and more than 20 palaeokarst deposits or pits, many of which were exposed through the action of lime mining in the early 20th century. The pits represent h...
Multi-scalar geoarchaeological investigations were conducted on several samples of sediment (dolomite cave sediments, ferricrete ridge, speleothem, tufa and tufa cave sediments) from four early hominin fossil-bearing sites (Taung Type Site, Haasgat, Drimolen Main Quarry, Elandsfontein) in different South African karst environments. The study was de...
