Faunal taphonomy and biostratigraphy at Ngandong, Java, Indonesia and its implications for the late survival of Homo erectus

Dates taken from faunal remains at the Indonesian site of Ngandong, Central Java, have been used to bring the boundary forward for the Homo erectus extinction event to the late Pleistocene, between 53,000 to 27,000 BP. It is argued that as the mammalian fauna are associated with the hominins they ate most likely contemporaneous. If accurate, the implications of these dates suggest that there were sympatric or parapatric hominin species in some parts of Sunda, with Homo erectus coexisting for at least several millennia with Homo sapiens (Swisher, et al 1996). The purpose of this paper will be to improve our understanding of the taphonomic issues at Ngandong and establish how they may contribute to an understanding of the site's formation history. Preliminary analysis of the fossil assemblage indicates that there are considerable variations in patterns of bone modification at Ngandong, suggesting that most of the faunal remains may have quite different taphonomic histories. Reconstructions of the palaeoenvironment at the locality based upon faunal evidence does not correlate with an age sometime within the last 100,000 years, the biostratigraphy suggesting that the age of much of the fauna is more typical of an earlier open woodland environment. This study therefore cautions against the dates obtained by Swisher et al in order to establish an age for Homo erectus at Ngandong. Swisher, C.C, Rink, W.J, Anton, S.C, Schwarcz, H.P, Curtis, G.H, Suprijo, A, Widiasmoro. Science 274:1870-1873, 1996.