Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-kw2vx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-13T22:12:00.947Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Disarticulation patterns of some modern East African mammals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2016

Andrew Hill  and
Anna K. Behrensmeyer
Andrew Hill
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Peabody Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
Anna K. Behrensmeyer
Affiliation:
Department of Paleobiology, Smithsonian Institution, NHB-E207 M.S. 121, Washington, D.C. 20560
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The sequences of skeletal disarticulation in a broad range of African mammals in a tropical savanna environment suggest that in general the process is very consistent. There is some variation among species, but this cannot yet be convincingly related to higher taxonomic categories or to body size. Disarticulation begins shortly after death, proceeds more or less continuously, and is almost complete after 5 yr. Because of the overall predictability of disarticulation, the stage of disarticulation reached by comparable fossil skeletons provides useful information about their taphonomic history prior to burial.

Type
Articles
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , Summer 1984 , pp. 366 - 376
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Literature Cited

Behrensmeyer, A. K. 1978. Taphonomic and ecological information from bone weathering. Paleobiology. 4:150–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Behrensmeyer, A. K. and Dechant Boaz, D. E. 1980. The recent bones of Amboseli National Park, Kenya, in relation to East African paleoecology. Pp. 72–92. In: Behrensmeyer, A. K. and Hill, A., eds. Fossils in the Making. Univ. Chicago Press; Chicago.Google Scholar
Behrensmeyer, A. K., Western, D., and Dechant Boaz, D. E. 1979. New perspectives in vertebrate paleoecology from a recent bone assemblage. Paleobiology. 5:12–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corbet, G. B. 1978. The Mammals of the Palaearctic Region: A Taxonomic Review. Bull. Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist.).Google Scholar
Groves, C. P. 1971. Request for a declaration modifying article 1 so as to exclude names proposed for domestic animals from zoological nomenclature. Z.N.(S.) 1935. Bull. Zool. Nomen. 27:269–272.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, A. 1979a. Disarticulation and scattering of mammal skeletons. Paleobiology. 5:261–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, A. 1979b. Butchery and natural disarticulation: an investigatory technique. Am. Antiq. 44:739–744.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, A. 1980. Early post-mortem damage to the remains of some contemporary east African mammals. Pp. 131–152. In: Behrensmeyer, A. K. and Hill, A., eds. Fossils in the Making. Univ. Chicago Press; Chicago.Google Scholar
Hill, A. and Behrensmeyer, A. K. 1985. Natural disarticulation and Bison butchery. Am. Antiq. 50(1).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Potts, R. B. 1982. Lower Pleistocene site formation and hominid activities at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Unpubl. Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard Univ.; Cambridge, Mass.Google Scholar
Toots, H. 1965. Sequence of disarticulation in mammalian skeletons. Univ. Wyoming Contr. Geol. 4:37–39.Google Scholar
Weigelt, J. 1927. Rezente Wirbeltierleichen und ihre Paläobiologische Bedeutung. 227 pp. Max.Weg; Leipzig.Google Scholar