Interview with Albert S. Peeling, June 3, 1995

Albert S. Peeling was interviewed on June 3, 1995 by Michael J. Birkner & David Hedrick about his years as a student at Gettysburg College in the class of 1925. Peeling discusses his memories of the faculty as a history major and life at the college at the time, such as living quarters and athletics. Length of Interview: 57 minutes Collection Note: This oral history was selected from the Oral History Collection maintained by Special Collections & College Archives. Transcripts are available for browsing in the Special Collections Reading Room, 4th floor, Musselman Library. GettDigital contains the complete listing of oral histories done from 1978 to the present. To view this list and to access selected digital versions please visit -- http://gettysburg.cdmhost.com/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16274coll

Revisiting the Developmental Stage and Age-at-Death of the “Mrs. Ples” (Sts 5) and Sts 14 Specimens from Sterkfontein (South Africa): Do They Belong to the Same Individual?

During the 1947 fieldwork season, Member 4 (2-3 My) of the South African Sterkfontein site yielded two important Australopithecus africanus fossils: a cranium popularly nicknamed "Mrs. Ples" (Sts 5), and a partial skeleton (Sts 14). Previous reports have proposed that Sts 5 was a nonfully grown adolescent individual (Thackeray et al., S Afr J Sci 2002a;98:21-22), and that Sts 14 was a sub-adult specimen (according to various signs of immaturity in the skeleton) (Berge and Gommery, C R Acad Sci Paris, Sciences de la terre et des planètes 1999;329:227-232; Häusler and Berger, J Hum Evol, 2001;40:411-417; Thackeray et al., S Afr J Sci, 2002b;98:211-212). It was subsequently proposed that these fossils actually belonged to the same individual (Thackeray et al., S Afr J Sci, 2002b;98:211-212), a proposition supported by their spatial positions within the site. The present work attempts to revise these different assertions. The results obtained: (i) show that the Sts 5 fossil represents a fully grown adult cranium; (ii) provide new evidence of immaturity in the Sts 14 skeletal elements (sustaining the proposed young adult age of this specimen), and (iii) suggest that although the revised ages-at-death for these fossils are partially compatible, there is no evidence to support the idea that they represent a single individual. Finally, the encephalization quotient associated with a hypothetical union of Sts 5 and Sts 14 (calculated using data from both specimens) lies between the upper and lower limits of the currently estimated range for this species and H. habilis, respectively.Depto. de Geodinámica, Estratigrafía y PaleontologíaFac. de Ciencias GeológicasTRUEMinisterio de Educación y Cienciapu