Minnaar’s Cave: a Plio-Pleistocene site in the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa: its history, location, and fauna D. Gommery 1,2 * , S. Badenhorst 2,3,4 , F. Sénégas 1,2 , S. Potze 2 and L. Kgasi 2 1 UPR 2147 CNRS, 44 Rue de l’Amiral Mouchez, 75014 Paris, France 2 Human Origins and Past Environments Research Unit (HRU), Ditsong National Museum of Natural History (formerly Transvaal Museum), P.O. Box 413, Pretoria, 0001 South Africa 3 Archaeozoology Section, Ditsong Museum National of Natural History (formerly Transvaal Museum), P.O. Box 413, Pretoria, 0001 South Africa 4 Institute for Human Evolution, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, WITS, 2050 South Africa GOMMERY, D., BADENHORST, S., SÉNÉGAS, F., POTZE, S. and KGASI, L., 2012. Minnaar’s Cave: a Plio- Pleistocene site in the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa: its history, location, and fauna. Annals of the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History 2: 19–31. Minnaar’s Cave is located close to Sterkfontein in the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa.However, the exact location of this important Plio-Pleistocene site has been uncertain for more than 60 years. The site has yielded important fossils. We propose a location for the site and provide a preliminary description of the animal remains recovered from recent research. In addition, a summary of the fossils already described from Minnaar’s Cave is provided. Keywords: Plio-Pleistocene, Minnaar, Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, South Africa, Robert Broom, History, Location, Bovidae, Jackal, Primate. INTRODUCTION The Ditsong National Museum of Natural History in Pretoria (TMSA, formerly Transvaal Museum) houses the Plio-Pleistocene Minnaar’s Cave collec- tions. The majority of the breccia blocks are still unprepared, except for some blocks prepared by one of us (FS) in 2006. The site Minnaar’s Cave (or simply Minnaar) is best known for yielding a complete cranium of a jackal (Canis mesomelas), accessioned as TM 1583 (Fig. 1). However, little is known about the site. Brain (1981) referred to Minnaar, but not to its location. The online atlas of Plio-Pleistocene localities of South African sites (Berger and Brinks (n.d.)) contains no reference to Minnaar, and no formal investigation into the fossils of Minnaar has been published until now. In this paper, the members of the HRU (HOPE Research Unit, TMSA, Pretoria) research team address the history of the site, its possible location, and give an overview of faunas retrieved from the site. HISTORY OF MINNAAR Little remains known about Minnaar. Our first lead was found in Brain (1981), who mentioned the study of canid material from Minnaar by Ewer (1956), who indicated (loc. cit: 109) that the famous jackal cranium (TM 1583) was originally illustrated by Broom and Schepers (1946: 81) (Fig. 2). The latter authors did not specifically refer to Minnaar as the location of the cranium, but only mentioned a cave about a mile away from Sterkfontein (which yielded Plesianthropus). The second lead came from Broom’s personal archives, stored in the TMSA, in which we found the original drawing of the jackal cranium (Fig. 3). However, there is no indication of the location, just the systematic attribution of the fossil (Thos antiquus, now Canis mesomelas). Robert Broom, then with the Transvaal Museum, began fieldwork in the Sterkfontein Valley in 1936 (Brain, 1981). It is probable that he discovered Minnaar between 1936 and 1946. Broom (1939: 336) mentioned that he possessed a near complete cranium of Thos antiquus from a site about a mile from Sterkfontein, the same location given by Broom and Schepers (1946). It is therefore very likely that Minnaar was known to Broom before 1939. Of the 148 fossil specimens collected at Minnaar by Robert Broom, which were recorded in the Verte- brate Palaeontology Temporary Catalogues, Book 5 (Fig. 4), we could find only 105 (two of the specimens each have two different numbers). The provenance of some specimens is uncertain. The catalogue indicates they are from ‘Minnaar’s Cave, Sterk- fontein’. Consequently, some fossils found at Minnaar may have come from Sterkfontein. In 1937, Broom described TM 1582, the type specimen of Thos antiquus (Fig. 5). He did not provide any information concerning the provenance of this fossil. However, in the Vertebrate Palaeonto- logy Temporary Catalogues, Book 5, he indicated that this specimen comes from ‘Sterkfontein (at Minnaars)’ (Fig. 6). Owing to this confusion, Ewer (1956: 110) could not decide from which site *Author for correspondence. E-mail: dominique.gommery@evolhum.cnrs.fr