I got to work with an Olduvai research team today! Marlo, Caroline, Alex, and I joined Dr. Charles and Alaz on the eastern Serengeti plains surveying a site for the remains of carnivore kills. If you’ve ever watched a nature documentary on African ecosystems, you’ve probably seen shots of a never-ending sea of yellow grass. That is the Serengeti, and that is what we saw for miles and miles in the Serengeti National Park. Our location in the eastern plains has short grass, so we were able to easily look down and spot bones on the landscape. One cool thing about the location of data collection was that it was right next to the oldest rocks in Africa! We all got to walk on pre-Cambrian rocks, so I’ve literally walked on something that existed before dinosaurs.
Pre-Cambrian rocks
The first objective was to survey the landscape in plots. To do this, we used a GPS system to break the landscape into plots. We stood in a line next to one another two arm lengths apart at one end of the plot and then walked as an evenly spaced unit until we reached the other side of the plot. Then we all scooted down along the plot boundary, turned around, and continued walking across the plot. It was essentially like mowing a lawn in straight, parallel lines starting at one edge of the yard and ending at the other. While we walked, we scanned the ground around us for bones. When I spotted a bone, I had to announce “flagging” and then bent down to place a flag next to the bone while the rest of the line stopped and waited. We functioned as a human quadrat (grid-shaped piece of equipment used for surveying), and it was really neat to collect survey data on such a large scale.
If you squint hard enough you can see the flags
Something cool I flagged was a Thomson’s gazelle horn sheath! It was about a foot long, so it likely came from a fully grown male. Charles told me later that horn sheaths don’t actually count as bones, but he said I seemed so excited to find the horn sheath that he let me flag it anyway.
Thomson’s gazelle horn sheath
Being on the plains, we were in the feeding jackpot of grazers. One type of grazer is goats. About an hour into surveying, we had to pause to wait for hundreds of goats to pass through our survey area. Slowly watching the army of goats cross the horizon and make their way toward us was so cinematic. The cacophony of goat sounds was like if you had a massive sheep farm in Minecraft and walked through it with your volume all the way up. The goats were herded by Maasai boys, who are very skilled at using whistling to direct the animals.
Goat invasion
We saw multiple dung beetles while surveying the ground! I spotted one actually rolling dung, but I was in the middle of surveying so I couldn’t stop to take a picture. I was surprised at how big they were. I’ve never seen a beetle the size of a poker chip.
Dung beetle without the dung
After we finished our plot surveys, we went back to each flag and cataloged the bones into the GPS system. It took us almost 3 hours, but we finished logging the entire site! We collected and cataloged 186 bones, including an almost-complete skeleton of a young wildebeest!
Cataloging the bones of a wildebeest
Charles and Alaz were so blown away by our efficiency and work ethic that they offered to buy us cold drinks at lunch! It was so nice to sip on a delicious, ice-cold Passion Fanta. During an afternoon break, I took some time to look over my methods lecture slides, and the rest of the gang made friendship bracelets. I also had the first cold but not freezing shower I’ve had in 5 days, and it felt like such a luxury.
Friendship prevails in the form of bracelets
I gave my cenogram analysis presentation at the museum in the afternoon, and it went really well! The class gave good feedback and seemed to understand the method, and I got the coveted thumbs up from Manuel.
While at the museum, we finished categorizing our excavated teeth and used the identifications to brainstorm paleohabitat reconstruction for the gully. Essentially, based on the taxonomic distribution of teeth we collected, we hypothesized the conditions of the paleoenvironment. We had a lot of teeth from grazers like antelopes and zebras, and this indicates an open environment. However, we also had some teeth from grazers like giraffes, and this indicates the presence of trees. We also had teeth from water-dependent groups like buffalos and waterbucks, and this confirms that this habitat was by a river. Combining our teeth data with previously collected data from the gully, we found that our teeth corroborate evidence that the gully was an open environment that drew visitation by non-grazing fauna to the water, and the stone tools we noticed during excavation evidence the presence of hominins despite no nearby hominin sites. Dr. Manuel had an idea and pitched the potential opportunity to use paleoecological methods to reconstruct the paleohabitat, and he said that we could all have the chance to be listed authors!! I am so excited by this idea and would definitely be interested in answering the questions we have posed.
We went as a class to watch the sunset by The Castle, and it was paradise in a nutshell. The colors were extraordinary, and we even spotted a male baboon!
The Castle at golden hour
Like every night here, we had dinner with the resident Tom cat of Olduvai that we lovingly named rabies. I have resisted the urge to peg him for obvious reasons, but his moaning and prancing around really push it for me.
This cat might have rabies (don’t touch)
To end the night of this eventful day, I went stargazing at the museum with Marlo, Kamden, and Dr. Solomon. Kamden and I didn’t have cool cameras so we just soaked up the beautiful Milky Way views.
I wish I had a better camera to capture the magnificence of the night sky
One day I wished upon a star that I would be able to experience the world, and opportunities like this help my dreams come true.
