What taphonomically oriented research at Swartkrans caves reveals about early hominid behavior

The paleoantrhopological significance of Swartkrans Cave (South Africa) is as much for the inferences of early Pleistocene hominid behavior in provides as for its large samples of Australophitecus robustus and Homo erectus fossils. Most of those behavioral inferences emanate from the taphonomic studies one of us (CKB) conducted in concert with his 1965-1986 excavations at Swartkrans. After a fieldwork hiatus of 19 years, we are building on that seminal woek, with the establishment of the Swartkrans Paleoantrhopological Research Project (SPRP), a new round of excavations and laboratory studies at the site. The SPRP has a wide range of goals, inclunding, obtainment of (uranium) U-series dates for speleothems distributed throughout the Swartkrans Formation; more accurate characterization of the technology and function of the site's stone and bone tools; further detailed analyses of the behaviorally informative zooarchaeological assemblages from the caves; continued investigation of burned bones, which might indicate hominid-controlled fire the early Pleistocene. We review the entirety of this collective work, emphasizing its broader paleoanthropological significance.