The Equidae from Cooper's D, an early Pleistocene fossil locality in Gauteng, South Africa

Shaw Badenhorst; Christine M Steininger

doi:10.7717/peerj.6909

The Equidae from Cooper's D, an early Pleistocene fossil locality in Gauteng, South Africa

PeerJ. 2019 May 15:7:e6909. doi: 10.7717/peerj.6909. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Shaw Badenhorst^#¹, Christine M Steininger^#^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
² DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Cooper's D is a fossil locality in the Bloubank Valley close to other important sites such as Sterkfontein and Kromdraai in Gauteng, South Africa. The fossil deposits of Cooper's D date to 1.38 ± 0.11 Ma. Hominins like Paranthropus robustus and early Homo have been recovered from Cooper's Cave. We report here on the Equidae remains. Our sample contains specimens from the extinct Equus capensis, and a specimen which represents an extinct hipparion Eurygnathohippus cf. cornelianus. This particular specimen was previously identified as plains zebra (Equus quagga). The contribution of Equidae to the total fossil assemblage of Cooper's D is relatively low, and these remains were likely accumulated by various predators such as spotted and brown hyenas and leopards. The Equidae, as well as the other fauna from Cooper's D supports the existence of grassland, wooded and water components in the vicinity of the site.

Keywords: Cooper’s D; Equidae; Equus capensis; Eurygnathohippus cornelianus; Hipparion.

Grants and funding

The excavations at Cooper’s D were supported financially by the Palaeanthropological Scientific Trust (PAST), National Research Foundation, and the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences (CoE-Palaeo). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.