REVISITING KLASIES RIVER: A REPORT ON THE LARGE MAMMAL REMAINS FROM THE DEACON EXCAVATIONS OF KLASIES RIVER MAIN SITE, SOUTH AFRICA

Klasies River is arguably one of the most informative Middle Stone Age sites in Africa. Its extensive occupational sequence and the large quantity of faunal material, lithic artefacts, and Homo sapiens remains makes this a key site to explore modern human evolution. Two major excavations of the Klasies sequence - the first by Singer and Wymer in 1967/68, and later by Hilary Deacon in the 1980s and 1990s - yielded a vast quantity of faunal material. However, interpretation of the Singer and Wymer fauna has been marred by , flawed collection techniques. In contrast, all faunal remains from the Deacon collection were recovered and analysed with the potential to provide less biased results. Here, we report on the fauna from the Deacon assemblage, placing particular emphasis on the description of the material. We find that the 'Klasies pattern' - or an ungulate skeletal-part profile dominated by skulls and feet for larger bovids, with a more equitable skeletal-part distribution for smaller bovids - is not represented in the Deacon collection. The Klasies pattern was therefore likely caused by sampling bias. Generally, bovid remains dominate the assemblage, while seal and hyrax are the most common identified taxa. The palaeoenvironmental implication of the material is briefly discussed, which confirms the results from Klein's (1976) analysis of the Singer and Wymer collection.