Chronology of Neogene Mammal Localities

While the Neogene record of fossil mammals in Africa is considerably more substantial than that of the Paleogene, it remains far from the relative completeness of the record in, for example, Europe and North America. Many West and Central African countries are completely devoid of a Neogene mammal record, while other countries have only a handful of localities that at best serve as a modest window into what might exist there. Even in regions or countries where there is a record, such as South Africa, that record is very uneven. In some regions, such as the Turkana Basin of northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia, the dating is unsurpassed. In other regions, such as the Miocene of southern and northern Africa, dating is poor and controversial, dependent mainly on biochronologic correlations with faunas outside Africa. Finally, the dating of karstic cave sites such as the australopithecine sites in Gauteng and Limpopo provinces of South Africa is notoriously difficult and rife with controversy. This chapter provides a brief overview of several African sites that have yielded mammalian fossils and their chronology.