The Osteodontokeratic ("bone-tooth-horn", Greek and Latin derivation) culture (ODK) is a hypothesis that was developed by Prof. Raymond Dart (who identified the Taung child fossil in 1924, and published the find in Nature Magazine in 1925),[1] which detailed the predatory habits of Australopith species in South Africa involving the manufacture and use of osseous implements. Dart envisaged Australopithecus africanus, known from Taung and Sterkfontein caves, and Australopithecus prometheus (now classified as Au. africanus) from Makapansgat, as carnivorous, cannibalistic predators who utilized bone and horn implements to hunt various animals, such as antelopes and primates, as well as other Australopiths.
In 1922, Wilfred Eitzman, a local schoolteacher, visited the Makapansgat Limeworks in Limpopo, South Africa, where he collected a number of fossil remains, including those of extinct baboon species, which originated from the Australopith-bearing, Member 3 Grey breccia layers [2]. After meeting Prof. Raymond Dart from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg at a lecture in 1925, Eitzman sent some of this fossil material to him for thorough inspection. Dart examined 58 baboon skulls from Eitzman's collections, and recognized a repeated pattern of depressed fractures on the cranial vaults of a number these specimens. Consistent with this pattern, he also found that 4 out of the 6 known Australopith skulls from the Member 3 layers showed similar cranial fractures, although Dart struggled to find an adequate explanation that would account for the frequency of this damage. Eventually Dart concluded that this pattern could have only resulted from "purposeful violence…inflicted by implements held in the hands," suggesting that southern African Australopiths used long bones (e.g. femurs and humeri), mandibles, horn cores, etc. as hunting weaponry to satisfy their hyper-carnivorous diets (1949).[3] Thus, the ODK hypothesis implied that the rise of the genus Australopithecus from 'hominoid' to 'hominin,' meaning from an ‘ape-adaptive grade’ to a more ‘human-adaptive grade,’ was borne from the ability of early hominin species to use tools, more specifically weapons.
Dart published numerous journal articles on the subject of the ODK hypothesis, which received considerable backlash from his contemporaries. In 1957, he released a comprehensive volume entitled, The Osteodontokeratic Culture of Australopithecus prometheus[4] which outlined his arguments for the validity of the "predatory transition from Ape to Man" (see Dart 1953).[5] To justify his arguments, Dart relied on critical lines of evidence that substantiated the validity of ODK culture, although his critics would eventually turn his evidence against him to refute the hypothesis altogether (see below). Dart suggested that the breakage patterns of the so-called bone implements from the Member 3 Grey breccia layers from Makapansgat displayed evidence of being purposefully broken by the early Australopiths, through cracking and twisting, while fresh. Dart's opinion was that this damage was in no way characteristic of predatory or scavenging animals (e.g. hyenas), and so must have been the result of early hominin dietary activities, mostly likely to access marrow. Furthermore, after the analysis of over 7,000 faunal remains from the Member 3 Grey breccia material, Dart found a statistical over-representation of certain skeletal elements, such as distal humeri, metapodial bones and mandibles. He concluded that such skewed representational patterns could have only resulted from the selection and transportation of fleshy carcass parts of animals into the Makapansgat cave system by Australopiths. Lastly, Dart assigned specific tool uses to different bones elements, e.g. a 'mace' for antelope humeri, etc., similar to the manner in which Mary Leakey created tool types to account for various core morphologies in the Oldowan assemblages at Olduvai Gorge.
Initial criticisms & Dart's rebuttal
Immediately after the initial publication of Dart's ODK hypothesis in 1949, a number of his colleagues refuted the idea as an example of interpretation beyond the limits of scientific evidence. Dr. Wilfrid Le Gros Clark (1957)[6] criticized Dart's "over-emphatic" writing style, and suggested that his hypothesis relied mainly on the fact that no other feasible hypothesis could make sense of the evidence Dart had complied, rather than on the meticulousness of the scientific methods that Dart used to corroborate the existence of the ODK culture.
Dr. Sherwood Washburn conducted field research in the Wankie Game Reserve in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where he observed lion kills that were subsequently scavenged by smaller carnivores (e.g. hyenas, jackals and wild dogs). Washburn noted that the process of prey dis-articulation, and in some cases transport, by carnivores was a highly selective process, which produced similar skeletal part representation patterns to those that Dart found in the Member 3 bone assemblages from Makapansgat (cf. Maguire et al. 1980).[7] He published the now well-known article "Australopithecus: The Hunters or the Hunted?" (1957)[8] based upon this research, in which Washburn suggested that southern African Australopiths did not actually hunt other animal species, but rather were hunted and accumulated by cave-dwelling carnivores, most likely by hyenas. This was supported by the presence of two extinct hyenid species found in the Member 3 Grey breccia material, Pachycrocuta brevirostris and Hyaena makapani, as well as the abundance of hyena coprolites within these layers (which had been well known at the time). Thus, Washburn refuted Dart's ODK hypothesis based upon the same lines of evidence used to support it, and suggested that various hyena species were more likely responsible for the accumulation of bone material in the Australopith-bearing layers at Makapansgat.
Despite such refutations, Dart defended the ODK hypothesis for some time relying upon fieldwork conducted by some of his colleagues that seemed to dismiss the claims of Washburn and others, most notably the hyena bone-collector hypothesis. For example, Alun Hughes (1954),[9] then Dart's assistant, undertook research in the Kruger National Park, South Africa to investigate the bone accumulation habits of hyenid species, reporting that hyenas did not seem to amass bone material inside their dens, and instead consumed prey directly after the kill or in open-air scavenging sites with little evidence of transport behavior (see Dart 1965).[10] Thus, Dart rebutted Washburn's criticisms in arguing that the early Australopiths must have been responsible for the bone accumulations at Makapansgat due to the abundant amount of faunal material found within the cave system, as well as the nature of the breakage patterns. Coupled with the discovery of stone tool assemblages thought to be associated with the robust Australopith species (Zinjanthropus boisei, now classified under the genus Paranthropus) from Olduvai Gorge by Mary and Louis Leakey, this amounting evidence seemed to sway the argument in Dart's favor. Furthermore, Dr. John T. Robinson (1959)[11] (a colleague of Dr. Robert Broom at the Transvaal Museum, and a co-founder of the famous adult Au. africanus skull Sts 5, known as Mrs. Ples), had found a bone tool at Sterkfontein he believed to be used by Au. africanus, which also seemed to corroborate the ODK hypothesis.
However, Dart's refutation of the bone-collecting habits of hyenas was short-lived as an overwhelming body of research has found that hyenas do, in fact, accumulate bone material inside caves used as dens. Before Hughes's work in the Kruger National Park, modern zoological research focusing upon hyenas had never been correlated with palaeontological or palaeoanthropological studies of this nature. Due to the inception and on-going significance of taphonomic and palaeozoological research within these fields, it is now well-known and widely accepted that hyenid species transport and accumulate bone material within cave systems used as dens, which can ultimately result in fossil assemblages (see Maguire et al. 1980[7] and Kuhn et al. 2010).[12]
The birth of African cave taphonomy
Amidst the growing contention surrounding the validity of the ODK hypothesis, a young Southern Rhodesian (now Zimbabwe) researcher, Dr. Charles Kimberlin Brain ("Bob" Brain) became fascinated with Dart's work describing prehistory's "predatory ape-men", and conducted research upon the bone breakage and skeletal element representation patterns expounded in Dart's writings (see above). Brain (1967)[13] examined the remains of goat bones within Hottentot villages in Namibia, finding that the skeletal element representation patterns, which formed the crux of Dart's support for the ODK culture, were more simply explained by the durability and resistance of certain bone elements to soil-chemical weathering and the consumption habits of carnivores. This stimulated Brain's interest in how such patterns within cave systems might be affected by the weight, density, cortical thickness and size of bones in relation to weathering and erosion processes.
In 1965, Brain took over the directorship of Swartkrans cave (next to Sterkfontein caves) and found a very similar skeletal element representation pattern of fossil faunal remains (including ungulates, primates, large carnivores and hominins) to that of the Makapansgat Member 3 Grey breccia assemblages. This confirmed Brain's earlier work that skeletal element representation patterns were more likely generated from factors relating to the resilience of bone to weathering, carnivore damage and diagenesis. Further, he found that the breakage patterns from faunal remains at Swartkrans were consistent with large carnivore damage upon bone, such as leopards and hyenas. During Brain's excavations, he found a partial skull-cap of a juvenile Paranthropus robustus (SK 54) bearing two puncture marks (1970).[14] Brain found that these punctures aligned perfectly with the spacing of the canines in a leopard mandible. He then summarized the findings of his research spanning nearly 20 years in the authoritative volume entitled, The Hunters or the Hunted?: An Introduction to African Cave Taphonomy (1981)[15] (named after Washburn's famous article, see above), which corroborated Washburn's hypothesis that early Australopiths were not, in fact, responsible for associated fossil accumulations found throughout southern Africa. It instead demonstrated the fact that large carnivore species had played a much more important role in the origination of fossil deposit (especially in the Sterkfontein Valley) bearing Plio-Pleistocene hominin remains, and further that early Australopiths, as Washburn proposed many years ago, were preyed upon by large carnivores and were not actually predators themselves. Subsequently, Brain's work has engendered a body of on-going research critical to our understanding of early hominin species and the ecosystems in which they lived. Brain's volume contains an excellent summary of Dart's development of the ODK hypothesis, as well as his detailed refutation to it, which is now recognized as disproving Dart's ideas of the "predatory transition from Ape to Man."
Popular references
Robert Ardrey's African Genesis (1961),[16] which popularized concurrent viewpoints on the evolution of modern humans, contains numerous references to Dart's ODK hypothesis. He detailed Dart's evidence for the predatory rise of Australopiths from "Ape to Man" as the major factor from which modern behavior emerged.
One of the most well-known popular references to Dart's ODK hypothesis was captured in Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey (an adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's short story "The Sentinel", who also co-authored the screenplay with Kubrick) in which the first part of the film depicts early hominin "ape-men" as herbivorous animals being preyed upon by leopards (note the possible reference to Brain's work, see above). Then a black monolithic structure descends from the sky, which is inspected and touched by the ape-men who start shrieking and are thrown into a frenzy. One 'ape-man' spontaneously starts to use a bone as a tool, more specifically a weapon, which they use to retake a waterhole, suggesting the ‘dawn of human culture’ began from an extraterrestrial source.
For an excellent and detailed summary of history of the ODK hypothesis see Wolberg, D. L. (1970) "The Hypothesized Osteodontokeratic Culture of the Australopithecinae". Current Anthropology Vol. 11(1), pgs. 23–37.
For an authoritative perspective on the behavior of modern hyenid species and their significance in palaeozoology see Kuhn, B. F. 2011. Hyaenids: Taphonomy and Implications for the Palaeoenvironment. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Related Research Articles
Australopithecus is a genus of early hominins that existed in Africa during the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. The genera Homo, Paranthropus, and Kenyanthropus evolved from some Australopithecus species. Australopithecus is a member of the subtribe Australopithecina, which sometimes also includes Ardipithecus, though the term "australopithecine" is sometimes used to refer only to members of Australopithecus. Species include A. garhi, A. africanus, A. sediba, A. afarensis, A. anamensis, A. bahrelghazali and A. deyiremeda. Debate exists as to whether some Australopithecus species should be reclassified into new genera, or if Paranthropus and Kenyanthropus are synonymous with Australopithecus, in part because of the taxonomic inconsistency.
Australopithecus afarensis is an extinct species of australopithecine which lived from about 3.9–2.9 million years ago (mya) in the Pliocene of East Africa. The first fossils were discovered in the 1930s, but major fossil finds would not take place until the 1970s. From 1972 to 1977, the International Afar Research Expedition—led by anthropologists Maurice Taieb, Donald Johanson and Yves Coppens—unearthed several hundreds of hominin specimens in Hadar, Ethiopia, the most significant being the exceedingly well-preserved skeleton AL 288-1 ("Lucy") and the site AL 333. Beginning in 1974, Mary Leakey led an expedition into Laetoli, Tanzania, and notably recovered fossil trackways. In 1978, the species was first described, but this was followed by arguments for splitting the wealth of specimens into different species given the wide range of variation which had been attributed to sexual dimorphism. A. afarensis probably descended from A. anamensis and is hypothesised to have given rise to Homo, though the latter is debated.
Paleoanthropology or paleo-anthropology is a branch of paleontology and anthropology which seeks to understand the early development of anatomically modern humans, a process known as hominization, through the reconstruction of evolutionary kinship lines within the family Hominidae, working from biological evidence and cultural evidence.
The Cradle of Humankind is a paleoanthropological site and is located about 50 km (31 mi) northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa, in the Gauteng province. Declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1999, the site is home to the largest concentration of human ancestral remains anywhere in the world. The site currently occupies 47,000 hectares (180 sq mi) and contains a complex system of limestone caves. The registered name of the site in the list of World Heritage Sites is Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa.
Sterkfontein is a set of limestone caves of special interest in paleoanthropology located in Gauteng province, about 40 kilometres (25 mi) northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa in the Muldersdrift area close to the town of Krugersdorp. The archaeological sites of Swartkrans and Kromdraai are in the same area. Sterkfontein is a South African National Heritage Site and was also declared a World Heritage Site in 2000. The area in which it is situated is known as the Cradle of Humankind. The Sterkfontein Caves are also home to numerous wild African species including Belonogaster petiolata, a wasp species of which there is a large nesting presence.
Mrs. Ples is the popular nickname for the most complete skull of an Australopithecus africanus ever found in South Africa. Many Australopithecus fossils have been found near Sterkfontein, about 40 kilometres (25 mi) northwest of Johannesburg, in a region of Gauteng now designated as the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site. Mrs. Ples was discovered by Robert Broom and John T. Robinson on April 18, 1947. Because of Broom's use of dynamite and pickaxe while excavating, Mrs. Ples's skull was blown into pieces and some fragments are missing. Nonetheless, Mrs./Mr. Ples is one of the most "perfect" pre-human skulls ever found. The skull is currently held at the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History in Pretoria.
Taung is a small town situated in the North West Province of South Africa. The name means place of the lion and was named after Tau, the King of the Barolong. Tau is the Tswana word for lion.
Australopithecus africanus is an extinct species of australopithecine which lived between about 3.3 and 2.1 million years ago in the Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene of South Africa. The species has been recovered from Taung, Sterkfontein, Makapansgat, and Gladysvale. The first specimen, the Taung child, was described by anatomist Raymond Dart in 1924, and was the first early hominin found. However, its closer relations to humans than to other apes would not become widely accepted until the middle of the century because most had believed humans evolved outside of Africa. It is unclear how A. africanus relates to other hominins, being variously placed as ancestral to Homo and Paranthropus, to just Paranthropus, or to just P. robustus. The specimen "Little Foot" is the most completely preserved early hominin, with 90% of the skeleton intact, and the oldest South African australopith. However, it is controversially suggested that it and similar specimens be split off into "A. prometheus".
The Taung Child is the fossilised skull of a young Australopithecus africanus. It was discovered in 1924 by quarrymen working for the Northern Lime Company in Taung, South Africa. Raymond Dart described it as a new species in the journal Nature in 1925.
Paranthropus robustus is a species of robust australopithecine from the Early and possibly Middle Pleistocene of the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa, about 2.27 to 0.87 million years ago. It has been identified in Kromdraai, Swartkrans, Sterkfontein, Gondolin, Cooper's, and Drimolen Caves. Discovered in 1938, it was among the first early hominins described, and became the type species for the genus Paranthropus. However, it has been argued by some that Paranthropus is an invalid grouping and synonymous with Australopithecus, so the species is also often classified as Australopithecus robustus.
Ronald John Clarke is a paleoanthropologist most notable for the discovery of "Little Foot", an extraordinarily complete skeleton of Australopithecus, in the Sterkfontein Caves. A more technical description of various aspects of his description of the Australopithecus skeleton was published in the Journal of Quaternary Science.
"Little Foot" is the nickname given to a nearly complete Australopithecus fossil skeleton found in 1994–1998 in the cave system of Sterkfontein, South Africa.
Gladysvale Cave is a fossil-bearing breccia filled cave located about 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) northeast of the well-known South African hominid-bearing sites of Sterkfontein and Swartkrans and about 45 kilometres (28 mi) north-northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is situated within the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site and is itself a South African National Heritage Site.
Makapansgat is an archaeological location within the Makapansgat and Zwartkrans Valleys, northeast of Mokopane in Limpopo province, South Africa. It is an important palaeontological site, with the local limeworks containing Australopithecus-bearing deposits dating to between 3.0 and 2.6 million years BP. The whole Makapan Valley has been declared a South African Heritage Site. Makapansgat belongs to the Cradle of Humankind.
The Makapansgat pebble or Makapansgat cobble is a pebble with natural chipping and wear patterns that make it look like a crude rendition of a human face, in fact at least two possible faces. Some scholars argue that it is the oldest known manuport.
Olduvai Hominid number 8 is a fossilized foot of an early hominin found in Olduvai Gorge by Louis Leakey in the early 1960s.
Australopithecus sediba is an extinct species of australopithecine recovered from Malapa Cave, Cradle of Humankind, South Africa. It is known from a partial juvenile skeleton, the holotype MH1, and a partial adult female skeleton, the paratype MH2. They date to about 1.98 million years ago in the Early Pleistocene, and coexisted with Paranthropus robustus and Homo ergaster / Homo erectus. Malapa is interpreted as having been a natural death trap, the base of a long vertical shaft which creatures could accidentally fall into. A. sediba was initially described as being a potential human ancestor, and perhaps the progenitor of Homo, but this is contested and it could also represent a late-surviving population or sister species of A. africanus which had earlier inhabited the area.
Malapa is a fossil-bearing cave located about 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) northeast of the well known South African hominid-bearing sites of Sterkfontein and Swartkrans and about 45 kilometres (28 mi) north-northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is situated within the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site.
StW 505 is the most complete hominin cranium discovered in Sterkfontein Member 4 since Broom's excavations. It was found in situ in Member 4 breccia in 1989 and is larger, on the whole, than any other cranium from Sterkfontein that has comparable parts.
The Hunters or the Hunted?: An Introduction to African Cave Taphonomy is a 1981 book by Charles Kimberlin Brain regarding the taphonomy of cave deposits in Africa.
References
↑ Dart, R. A. 1924. "Australopithecus africanus: The man-ape of South Africa". Nature 115: 195-199.
↑ Eitzman, W. I. (1958). Reminiscences of Makapansgat limeworks and its bone-breccial layers. South African Journal of Science, 54(7), 177–182. https://doi.org/10.10520/AJA00382353_542
↑ Dart, R. A. 1949. The predatory implement technique of the Australopithecines. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 7: 1-16.
↑ Dart, R. A. 1957. The Osteodontokeratic Culture of Australopithecus prometheus. Transvaal Museum Memoir No. 10.
↑ Dart, R. A. 1953. The predatory transition from Ape to Man. International Anthropological and Linguistic Review 1: 201-219.
↑ Clark, W. Le Gros. 1957. Humans and hominids. Review of: The Osteodontokeratic Culture of Australopithecus prometheus, by R. A. Dart. Nature 180: 156.
1 2 Maguire, J.; Pemberton, D. & Collett, M. 1980. "The Makapansgat Limeworks Grey breccia: hominids, hyaenas, hystricids or hillwash?" Palaeontologia africana 23: 75-98.
↑ Washburn, S. 1957. "Australopithecus: hunters of the hunted?" American Anthropologist 59: 612-614.
↑ Hughes, A. 1954. "Hyenas vs. australopithecines as agents of bone accumulation". American Journal of Physical Anthropology 12: 476-86.
↑ Dart, R. A. 1956. "The myth of the bone-accumulating hyena". American Anthropologist 58: 40-62.
↑ Robinson, J. T. 1959. "A bone implement from Sterkfontein". Nature 184: 583-585.
↑ Kuhn, B. F.; Berger, L. R. & Skinner, J. D. 2010. "Examining criteria for identifying and differentiating fossil faunal assemblages accumulated by hyenas and hominins using extant hyenid accumulations". International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 20: 15-35.
↑ Brain. C. K. 1967. "Bone weathering and the problem of pseudo-bone tools". South African Journal of Science 63: 97-99.
↑ Brain, C. K. 1970. "New finds at the Swartkrans Australopithecine site". Nature 225: 1112-1119.
↑ Brain, C. K. 1981. Hunters or the Hunted?: An Introduction to African Cave Taphonomy. University of Chicago Press: Chicago & London.
↑ Ardrey, R. 1961. African Genesis. Collins: London.
↑ Hatsumi, M. 2005. Advanced Stick Fighting. Kodansha: London & Tokyo.
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