Heritage Cases

Bolt’s Farm - Klinkert’s portion is a faunal-bearing area in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site of UNESCO with different loci. It is known to have yielded some large carnivores such as the almost complete skull associated to the mandible of Dinofelis barlowi (Cooke, 1991). It has also yielded a relative important collection of non-hominid primates such as the enigmatic skull of Parapapio (BF 43) and the well-preserved skull of Cercopithecoides williamsi (BF 42). BFCS-Klinkert’s presents also the oldest known fossil deposit of the Cradle of Humankind, Waypoint 160. The last couple of years, the HRU team discovered some new important fossils such as a fragmentary skull of bald ibis (Geronticus calvus) at BPB (Pavia et al., 2017), few teeth of a Tetraconodontinae (Gerontochoerus koobiforaensis) at BPA (Pickford et al. 2019), an upper molar of Mylomygale sp. at BPA (Senut et al., in preparation) and a large collection of remains of lion-like felid at BC (Kuhn et al., in preparation). The fossil collection of Bolt’s Farm - Klinkert’s portion is not important in comparison with most of the well-known sites from the Cradle of Humankind such as Sterkfontein, Swartkrans, Kromdraai,… A more important collection of fossils from Bolt’s Farm - Klinkert’s portion exists in the USA (California University Expedition of Camp between 1947-48). New loci have been also discovered by the Bolt’s Farm team and the collection must be created. It is important to increase this collection at the DNMNH for the faunal and environmental studies but also for the heritage promotion (exhibition for example). The first excavation started in October 2013 at Brad Pit A and B on Bolt’s Farm - Klinkert’s portion. It is the first time excavation takes place at Bolt’s Farm since the first fossils collected by R. Broom in 1936. In comparison with most of the sites of the Cradle of Humankind, that have decades of digging activities, Bolt’s Farm can be considered as a young excavation.