Elsevier

Quaternary International

Volume 436, Part A, 29 April 2017, Pages 253-269
Quaternary International

A new Late Pleistocene fauna from arid coastal India: Implications for inundated coastal refugia and human dispersals

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.07.002Get rights and content

Abstract

A diverse Late Pleistocene fossil assemblage was recovered from a sea cliff locality near Gopnath in Gujarat, northwestern India. These remains are the first large sample of Pleistocene faunal materials from arid northwestern India. Several taxa known primarily from coarse alluvial deposits of central India are documented for the first time from an undisturbed open-air site adjoining the Great Indian Desert. The sample includes a new species of antelope from a lineage considered extinct outside of Africa since the Early Pleistocene. The paleoenvironmental context, faunal composition and type of fossil preservation reported here is unique. The Gopnath fauna accumulated in a pond within a carbonate dune field that formed part of a larger coastal oasis ecosystem. This paleoscape occupied the Cambay Gulf during hyper-arid glacial low stands. The Gopnath fossils are correlated to Late Acheulean lithics from a coastal cliff locality (<8 km) at Madhuban. These finds provide the first vertebrate evidence of glacial low stands and their influence on Late Pleistocene paleobiogeography within the dynamic dry coastal corridor linking India to Africa. They offer a rare glimpse of a lost landscape and an obscure fossil community that are critical to understanding the paleobiogeography of the hinterland along the Arabian seashore and informing models of early human dispersals.

Introduction

The desert littoral of the north Arabian Sea plays a key role in many models of early human dispersal out of Africa and into southern Asia (Stringer, 2000, Mellars, 2006a, Field et al., 2007, Petraglia, 2007, Dennell and Petraglia, 2012). However, the tyranny of the fossil record in this area has proven nearly insurmountable (Boivin et al., 2013). No substantial fossil remains have been reported from the swath of arid lowlands linking Africa to India along the tropical Arabian coastline. Most of the Nubo-Sindian floral zone, from the Nile to the Indus Valley is a “black hole” of Pleistocene paleoanthropology and vertebrate paleobiology (Dennell and Roebroeks, 2005, Dennell, 2009). Although lithic evidence demonstrates that Pleistocene human groups occupied the interior of southern Arabia (Rose, 2010, Armitage et al., 2011, Petraglia et al., 2011, Rose et al., 2011, Delagnes et al., 2012) and the Sind–Thar Desert (Allchin et al., 1978, Misra and Rajaguru, 1986, Misra, 1995a, Biagi, 2008, Blinkhorn, 2012, Noguchi et al., 2012, Blinkhorn et al., 2013), few fossils are available to put these finds into an ecological context (Groucutt and Petraglia, 2012).

Despite enthusiasm for early human coastal migrations in southern Eurasia, there is little empirical evidence to support the assumption of a coastal route (Boivin et al., 2013). Most evidence for Late Pleistocene early human dispersals comes from inland areas suggesting that many early humans took the high-roads out of Africa (Korisettar, 2007, Boivin et al., 2013). Yet the limited preservation potential of dynamic marginal lowlands is expected, particularly along broad continental shelves where vast areas could have been exposed, submerged and or reworked by glacial–interglacial sea level flux. The scarcity of evidence is expected for a coastal dispersal, but remains problematic nonetheless. If early humans did follow a coastal superhighway out of Africa, we have little idea what that road may have been like.

This paper describes the first Late Pleistocene faunal assemblage recovered from the tropical Arabian coastal corridor. A large vertebrate collection from a glacial stage coastal oasis was recovered near Gopnath, on the Saurashtra peninsula in Gujarat State, northwestern India (Fig. 1). The fossils come from the Gopnath Formation, a heavily weathered carbonate fossil dune system. No evidence of early humans was observed, however the Gopnath fauna are correlated to a previously reported Late Acheulean site at Madhuban (Marathe et al., 1995). The geologic context, taphonomy and species composition from the Gopnath site are reported here along with an assessment of the Madhuban lithic collection. Additional radiometric dating is needed, however the faunal composition, lithics and geological context indicate a broad Late Pleistocene age ∼125–12 thousand years ago (ka) for the Gopnath Formation.

Section snippets

South Asian Pleistocene faunal record

Like elsewhere in the Nubo-Sindian zone, the Quaternary fossil record of South Asia is patchy. Although the Neogene strata of the Siwaliks (18–0.6 Ma) are one of the most complete successions of mammalian fauna in the world, the uppermost Early Pleistocene sediments (Boulder Conglomerate Formation) have yielded relatively few fossils. A significant shift in tectonics and basin geometries occurred near the beginning of the Quaternary in South Asia. These geodynamic developments left the area

Setting

Gopnath is a small fishing village of Talaja Taluka in southernmost Bhavnagar District, about 5.5 km south of the present mouth of the Shetrunji River (see Fig. 1). It marks the most southeastern point of the Saurashtra peninsula as well as the boundary between the Gulf of Cambay and the Arabian Sea. Khadkikar and Basavaiah (2004) were the first to note vertebrate fossils at Gopnath. Subsequent investigations of the Gujarat Paleoanthropology Project (Costa et al., 2011), at Gopnath led to the

Methods

When the fossil deposit at Gopnath was first discovered, the surf at high tide was actively mechanically and chemically destroying the recoverable deposit and its contents. By then an unknown portion of the fossiliferous deposit had already eroded away. High amplitude, semi-diurnal tides came up twice daily and allowed little time (∼3 h/day) to work at the Gopnath locality safely. For these reasons fieldwork at Gopnath was a principally a salvage operation with an improvised sampling strategy.

Gopnath fauna

The Gopnath vertebrate sample consists of 95 identifiable specimens belonging to a minimum of thirteen individuals who are attributed to eleven taxa from seven families (Table 1). The Gopnath assemblage is exceptionally diverse for a small sample composed of only a few individuals (Fig. 5). The assemblage is dominated by bovids which comprise nearly half of all remains identified and >30% of the estimated minimum number of individuals (MNI). Skeletal part representation is dominated by

Gopnath fauna

The Gopnath fossil assemblage includes many exceptional finds. The discovery of a fossil skull from Gopnath (GPN119) attributable to the tribe Reduncini is particularly important as this group disappears from the Asian fossil record following the Early Pleistocene Pinjor Formation of the Siwalik Group (Pilgrim, 1939, Nanda, 2008). The discovery of this new species, Sivacobus sankaliai at Gopnath implies that the reduncine lineage persisted unrepresented in the fossil record of South Asia for

Conclusions

The Gopnath fossil assemblage accumulated in an inter-dune pond within a carbonate dune field that was part of an arid glacial paleoscape. This represents a new setting for Pleistocene fossil materials in a critical, yet poorly known region of the tropical Arabian coastline. Investigations of the faunal assemblage discovered at Gopnath represent the first substantial contribution on Pleistocene paleobiology in Gujarat State. The assemblage includes a new reduncine (Sivacobus sankaliai) that is

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Professor P. Ajithprasad and the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History at the MS University of Baroda for being gracious hosts and providing field and lab support for these studies. I thank K. Krishnan, K, Bhan, Ambika Patel, Bhanu Sharma, and Rajesh S.V. Special thanks to Abha Tripathi, Brad Chase, Melanie Everett, Faysal Bibi, and P. Joglekar for assistance in faunal identifications. I thank the staff and faculty at Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institution

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