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14 - Citizens of the Savanna

An Account of Three Million Years of Interaction between Baboons and Hominins in South Africa

from Part III - Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2022

By
Shaw Badenhorst
Edited by
Bernardo Urbani ,
Dionisios Youlatos  and
Andrzej T. Antczak
Bernardo Urbani
Affiliation:
Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research
Dionisios Youlatos
Affiliation:
Aristotle University, Thessaloniki
Andrzej T. Antczak
Affiliation:
Universiteit Leiden
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Summary

South Africa is host to no less than seven extant primate species and also boasts a long history of findings of hominin fossils. Large primates, such as baboons and hominins, have coexisted and interacted for some three million years in the region. This coexistence changed radically over the millennia. During the Plio-Pleistocene, baboons and hominins were both prey to predators, such as leopards and saber-toothed cats, and they often slept in caves at night to escape predation. By the Later Stone Age, baboon remains are anthropologically modified, and the new social connotations are likely associated with ritual contexts. The potential ritual role of baboons changed with the arrival of the Iron Age farmers, when baboons were attracted to cultivated fields. Ethnoprimatologically, baboons became known as familiars of evil persons, reflecting largely a negative image of these primates. Europeans introduced rifles to South Africa, and this new technology assisted in the extermination of baboons in many parts of South Africa. Today, baboons are confined to nature reserves and rural areas.

Keywords:

Hominin, Primate, Baboon, Papio ursinus, Homo, Australopithecus

Type
Chapter
Information
World Archaeoprimatology
Interconnections of Humans and Nonhuman Primates in the Past
 , pp. 375 - 392
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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