A COMPREHENSIVE SEDIMENTOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE NGANDONG PALEOANTHROPOLOGICAL SITE IN CENTRAL JAVA, INDONESIA

The Ngandong paleoanthropological site in Central Java, Indonesia has significant impact on models for human migration throughout Southeast Asia. Located on a Late Pleistocene fluvial terrace along the Solo River, paleoanthropological excavations at Ngandong have uncovered thousands of vertebrate macrofaunal remains and fourteen Homo erectus fossils that, based on their morphology and their emplacement at a low terrace level, are believed to possibly be the most recent occurrences of H. erectus in the world. This study takes a comprehensive, geoarchaeological approach to this paleoanthropological site by pairing sedimentological, mineralogical, and bulk geochemical analyses with luminescence dating techniques to understand the timing and mechanics of the deposition and burial of the sediments and fossils at Ngandong. These results improve our understanding of the stratigraphic relationships within and between Solo River terrace remnants and provide useful information about the paleoflow dynamics of the Solo River during the Late Pleistocene. The results of this study may further be used to aid in the discovery of similarly fossiliferous deposits elsewhere along the Solo River.