Dating

Besides the reconstruction of the palaeo environment, dating is very important for the interpretation of fossils. It is fossil pigs, that play a key role for dating hominid fossils. The reason is easy to understand. Material for radiometric dating, i.e. measuring of radioactive substances such as of volcanic origin are not found in Northern Malawi, Therefore we need to employ relative dating methods especially in faunal groups, which evolve rather quickly. In Africa, these are the pigs. Especially the third molars of the primeval bush- and giant pigs have changed considerably during the last 4 million years – from broad but short to extremely high-crowned and narrow chewing tools.



Since decades, fossil remains of pigs have helped interpreting hominid findings from the Plio-Pleistocene of Africa. The fossils of extinct savannah- and bush-pigs help with relative dating (Biostratigraphy) and can contribute to the reconstruction of living conditions at the lifetime of australopithecines and Early Homo. Therefore, pigs have an important part not only in our everyday-lives but also in the examination of our evolutionary path. Of course, pigs were not domesticated but lived in big herds in almost all kinds of landscapes throughout Africa. Possibly they even competed with our ancestors for food. Through the high number of genera of the wild pigs and their rapid evolutionary progress, particularly in the development of their molars, they belong to the most important marker fossils at hominid sites. The elongation and raise of the molars is interpreted as a reaction to changed environmental and nutritional conditions.