"This book is devoted exclusively to the Cenozoic era in southern Africa. The authors explore a variety of themes within this time frame, beginning with the evolution of the major landforms of the subcontinent: the old landscapes of southern Africa are host to a wide variety of deposits of differing ages.

Special emphasis is placed on the cave fills of the interior, whose rich yield of early hominid and faunal remains have focused the attention of a host of paleoanthropologists and paleontologists on South Africa. These remains, and their implications for an understanding of patterns and mechanisms of evolution form the subjects of separate major contributions. Other themes include Cenozoic volcanism, paleofold hydrology, periglacial features, wetlands, vegetation history as reconstructed from pollen and macro-plant remains, environmental isotopes, and the Quaternary archaeological record.

In a concluding synthesis, evidence from all of these sources is used to trace the evolution of climates through the past 65 million years. This book will be an essential work of reference for students and researchers in the fields of geology, paleontology hominid evolution, and paleoclimatology.

It brings together in a single volume a wealth of new evidence on how the environments of the southern part of Africa have changed since Cretaceous times and examines the role of these changes in the emergence and development of our early ancestors."--BOOK JACKET.