Abstract

Dento-gnathic remains of a fossil suine currently housed at the Université d’Alger are accompanied by a label similar to those associated with other fossils excavated by Arambourg in 1951 at Bou Hanifia from deposits that were, at the time, correlated to the upper Vindobonian or late Middle Miocene. The undescribed suine fossils are enigmatic, in that they do not correspond in geological age to other fossils with similar labels. Several questions are posed including the possibility of mis-labelling. The fossils described herein are attributed to the suine Kolpochoerus maroccanus and correspond closely in terms of morphology and dimensions to material of Kolpochoerus heseloni from the Early Pleistocene of Eastern Africa (Shungura Formation D-G, Ethiopia; Burgi level, Kenya).

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Abstract

Studies during the 1970’s and 1980’s concluded that the continental Bou Hanifia Formation spanned the Vallesian and Turolian stages, the majority early opinion being that it was basal Vallesian and that it had yielded the oldest known remnants of the equid Hipparion from Africa. This opinion was taken to be backed-up by radio-isotopic age determinations of ca. 12.2 Ma obtained from volcanic tuffs that were originally mapped as being near the base of the formation. However, later suggestions in the literature indicated that some of the large mammals could be as young as late Turolian to Ventian (8–7 Ma). If so, then a major revision of North African biostratigraphy would be required. This paper focuses on the large mammals and avian eggshells recovered from the Bou Hanifia region, taking into account recent revisions of African faunas and a much augmented data base about their stratigraphic distribution, and it is concluded that the Bou Hanifia fossils have the closest relations to material from the late Turolian and Ventian Stages, and are thus likely to be of latest Miocene (Ventian) age (MN 13).

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