Bulletin of The Natural History Museum. Geology Series - Current Issue

Volume 58 Issue S1

Wed, 25 Jun 2003 23:00:00 GMT

Bulletin of The Natural History Museum. Geology Series, Volume 58 Issue S1

The Bulletin of the Natural History Museum , formerly the Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History) - instituted in 1949, is issued in four scientific series Botany, Entomology, Geology (incorporating Mineralogy) and Zoology. Papers in the Bulletins are primarily the results of research carried out on the unique and ever-growing collections of the Museum, both by its scientific staff and by specialists from elsewhere who make use of the Museum's resources. Many of the papers are works of reference that will remain indispensable for years to come. All papers submitted for publication are subjected to external peer review before acceptance. The Geology Series is edited in the Museum's Department of Palaeontology.

Gough's Cave 1 (Somerset, England): a study of the pelvis and lower limbs

Research Articles
ERIK TRINKAUS,
Bulletin of The Natural History Museum. Geology Series, Volume 58 Issue S1 , pp 1-21

Abstract
The lower limb remains of Gough s Cave 1 retain most of the pelvis, both femora, one complete tibia and portions of the other, sections of both fibulae, two tarsals and three metatarsals. They are those of a largely average European Mesolithic young adult male. Overall diaphyseal robusticity is generally similar to that of other Mesolithic specimens, even though the fibula and third metatarsal appear gracile. Musculo-ligamentous attachment areas are generally weakly marked. The proximal femora and the femoral diaphyses exhibit a clear asymmetry, especially in their neck-shaft angles and diaphyseal dimensions, which is is accompanied in the pelvis by a greater degree of left iliac lateral flare. These aspects are associated with a pelvis that combines several distinctly male characteristics with an overall pelvic aperture shape which is female.

Human Dental Remains from Gough's Cave (Somerset, England)

Research Articles
DIANE E. HAWKEY,
Bulletin of The Natural History Museum. Geology Series, Volume 58 Issue S1 , pp 23-35

Abstract
The dental remains of nine individuals from Gough s Cave (Cheddar, Somerset) date from Late Pleistocene to the Holocene. Descriptions are provided for all individuals for crown and root morphology, odontometric data, dental pathology (caries, abscess, periodontal disease, enamel hypoplasia), calculus deposition, enamel pressure chipping, occlusal attrition, and evidence of intentional occupational modification. The analytical focus is on seven individuals who date from the Late Upper Paleolithic Mesolithic (Creswellian) culture periods. Comparative data from nine world populations suggest five trends: 1) Gough s Cave individuals have a morphologically simplified dental pattern similar to other Late Pleistocene Early Holocene populations of North Europe, South Southwest Asia and North Africa. 2) Within Europe, Gough s Cave is consistent in post-Pleistocene trend towards reduction in tooth size. 3) There is a temporal trend in the British Isles towards lateral incisor reduction, while maintaining stable molar tooth size. 4) Pathology, wear, and enamel pressure chipping are consistent with a hunter gatherer lifeway, with one individual who may have occupationally related microtrauma. 5) No evidence occurs of any cleaning striations ( toothpick groves ) as has been suggested for Neanderthals.

Gough's Cave 1 (Somerset, England): an assessment of body size and shape

Research Articles
TRENTON W. HOLLIDAY, STEVEN E. CHURCHILL,
Bulletin of The Natural History Museum. Geology Series, Volume 58 Issue S1 , pp 37-44

Abstract
Stature, body mass, and body proportions are evaluated for the Cheddar Man (Gough s Cave 1) skeleton. Like many of his Mesolithic contemporaries, Gough s Cave 1 evinces relatively short estimated stature (ca. 166.2 cm 5 5 ) and low body mass (ca. 66 kg 146 lbs ). In body shape, he is similar to recent Europeans for most proportional indices. He differs, however, from most recent Europeans in his high crural index and tibial length trunk height indices. Thus, while Gough s Cave 1 is characterized by a total morphological pattern considered cold-adapted , these latter two traits may be interpreted as evidence of a large African role in the origins of anatomically modern Europeans.

Gough's Cave 1 (Somerset, England): an Assessment of the Sex and Age at Death

Research Articles
ERIK TRINKAUS, LOUISE HUMPHREY, CHRIS STRINGER, STEVEN E. CHURCHILL, ROBERT G. TAGUE,
Bulletin of The Natural History Museum. Geology Series, Volume 58 Issue S1 , pp 45-50

Abstract
The overall impression of the sexually dimorphic characteristics of Gough s Cave 1 is that the remains are those of a male. However, the specimen does present some female features in the facial skeleton, the ischiopubic rami and pelvic apertures, combined with relatively small overall size, and an ambiguous greater sciatic notch morphology. Nevertheless, the various features employed for sexual diagnosis of Gough s Cave are predominantly those which indicate or strongly suggest that it is male, but this must be accompanied with the caveat that either this individual falls at the feminine end of the male range of variation or that the patterns of skeletal sexual dimorphism of the population from which it derived were modestly different from those of the mostly European and European-derived reference samples used for this assessment. In contrast to the ambiguities of sex determination for Gough s Cave 1, the various indicators of his age-at-death are highly consistent. All of them agree in placing Gough s Cave 1 between his late second decade and middle third decade. He was unlikely to have been younger than about 18 years, and most likely was not older than about 23 years at death.

Gough's Cave, Cheddar, Somerset: Microstratigraphy of the Late Pleistocene/earliest Holocene sediments

Research Articles
RICHARD I. MACPHAIL, PAUL GOLDBERG,
Bulletin of The Natural History Museum. Geology Series, Volume 58 Issue S1 , pp 51-58

Abstract
Eleven thin sections of Late-glacial and early Holocene sediments from Gough s Cave were investigated by soil micromorphology in order to complement analyses of contemporary faunal and human remains. Despite the paucity of continuous vertical and lateral stratigraphic sequences, which were the result of cave exploitation during the first half of the twentieth century, we were able to elucidate site formation processes relating to both Late-Glacial environmental conditions and the burial environment affecting human remains.

Cannibalism in Britain: Taphonomy of the Creswellian (Pleistocene) faunal and human remains from Gough's Cave (Somerset, England)

Research Articles
P. ANDREWS, Y. FERNÁNDEZ-JALVO,
Bulletin of The Natural History Museum. Geology Series, Volume 58 Issue S1 , pp 59-81

Abstract
Human induced damage is the main taphonomic modification observed on the fossil bone assemblage of Gough s cave. Fossils from this site are very fragmentary, showing abundant cut-marks, percussion marks and peeling. Some specimens, however, are complete (ribs, vertebrae, carpal-tarsal bones and phalanges), but these elements are characterised by low marrow content where breakage to open the bone is not needed. Human remains recovered from this site show similar butchering patterns to other animals suggesting skinning, dismembering, defleshing and marrow extraction activities. Excavations during the 1986 1987 seasons showed that the human remains appear at the site randomly mixed with animal bones, with no specific distribution or arrangement of human bones. The evidence from this distribution indicates equal treatment of human and animal remains, and the analysis of cut-marks and other modifications suggests that both humans and animals were accumulated as the discarded food remains of the human population. This is interpreted as nutritional cannibalism. One exception to this is seen in the slight differences in skull treatment compared with other sites, suggesting a possible element of ritual cannibalism (cf Fontbr goua, the French Neolithic site, ca 4000 BC).