Continental Island Formation and the Archaeology of Defaunation on Zanzibar, Eastern Africa

PloS One
Mary E PrendergastNicole L Boivin

Abstract

With rising sea levels at the end of the Pleistocene, land-bridge or continental islands were formed around the world. Many of these islands have been extensively studied from a biogeographical perspective, particularly in terms of impacts of island creation on terrestrial vertebrates. However, a majority of studies rely on contemporary faunal distributions rather than fossil data. Here, we present archaeological findings from the island of Zanzibar (also known as Unguja) off the eastern African coast, to provide a temporal perspective on island biogeography. The site of Kuumbi Cave, excavated by multiple teams since 2005, has revealed the longest cultural and faunal record for any eastern African island. This record extends to the Late Pleistocene, when Zanzibar was part of the mainland, and attests to the extirpation of large mainland mammals in the millennia after the island became separated. We draw on modeling and sedimentary data to examine the process by which Zanzibar was most recently separated from the mainland, providing the first systematic insights into the nature and chronology of this process. We subsequently investigate the cultural and faunal record from Kuumbi Cave, which provides at least five key temporal wi...Continue Reading

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Citations

Oct 6, 2017·International Journal of Osteoarchaeology·M E PrendergastN L Boivin
Apr 15, 2020·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Kristina Douglass, Jago Cooper
Aug 6, 2021·Royal Society Open Science·Courtney CulleyAlison Crowther
Aug 27, 2021·PloS One·Patrick FaulknerMichael D Petraglia

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