Oceanica: Ezine 68 Excellere May 2009

Ezine 68
House Juillet
Ezine "Excellere".

May 2009

In English.

United Kingdom sf fans.............Cloned for the ones that loves Science Fiction.:

FRom

United Kingdom people.sf-fans

uk.people.sf-fanshttp://groups.google.com/group/uk.people.sf-fans?hl=en-GB uk.people.sf-fans@googlegroups.com Today's topics: * China Mieville, Perdido Street Station - 1 messages, 1 author http://groups.google.com/group/uk.people.sf-fans/t/d73361cc64e58c23?hl=en-GB* Ansible 262 [long] - 1 messages, 1 author http://groups.google.com/group/uk.people.sf-fans/t/904c31de42cd6b50?hl=en-GB ==============================================================================
TOPIC: China Mieville, Perdido Street Stationhttp://groups.google.com/group/uk.people.sf-fans/t/d73361cc64e58c23?hl=en-GB
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== 1 of 1 ==Date: Sun 19 Apr 2009 07:18From: prd@pauldormer.cix.co.uk (Paul Dormer) In article<7107dfbf-2f77-45e4-a0c2-212f58dacd3b@p11g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>,chrispche@googlemail.com (ChrisC) wrote: > Is it SF or Fantasy? Yes. Although which of the two is undecidable. It is, however, a very good read. And for some reason, for quite a while I thought it was called PerditoStreet Station. When I bought the book, I even entered it into my bookdatabase under that name. I was halfway through reading the book beforeI discovered the name change. I hate it when I jump universes like that.
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TOPIC: Ansible 262 [long]http://groups.google.com/group/uk.people.sf-fans/t/904c31de42cd6b50?hl=en-GB
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1 of 1 ==Date: Fri 1 May 2009 10:35From: David Langford
ANSIBLE 262MAY 2009 From DAVE LANGFORD, 94 London Road, Reading, Berks, RG1 5AU. Webnews.ansible.co.uk. Fax 0705 080 1534. ISSN 0265-9816 (print) 1740-942X(e). Available for SAE or shirts woven from crel filaments. [NET NOTE. See http://news.ansible.co.uk/a262.html for the nice HTMLversion. Mailing list subscribe/unsubscribe information appears below --please don't send such requests to my own e-mail address. DRL]

### A SWARM IN MAY ### ERIK ARTHUR of London's Fantasy
Centre bookshop broke the bad news: 'Bethe first to know that Ted [Ball] and Erik have decided that once ourlease expires in June, we shall not renew it and Fantasy Centre willclose down after nearly forty years of trading.' (2 April) MARGARET ATWOOD returns to a strangely familiar position while chattingto the _New York Times_: 'Her nightmarish, futuristic scenarios havecaused some of her books to be tagged as science fiction, though shethinks that genre doesn't quite fit -- "since there aren't aliens andspaceships and the other usual things," she said.'
[MF] Tut, Ms Atwood,you forgot to mention the talking squid in outer space. J.G. BALLARD coverage (see R.I.P. below, alas) has been rightlyextensive. On 25 April _The Guardian_ published his last short story 'TheDying Fall' as though it were hot news straight from the deathbed,without bothering to cite its appearance in the April 1996 _Interzone_.A _Guardian_ correction, with _Interzone_ credit, appeared on 1 May. [DP] TERRY BISSON notes how the world sees sf. 'News opinionator KeithOlberman on the US torture memos:

"Today, Mr. President, in acknowledgingthese science-fiction-like documents, you said that ..." etc.'

TESSA B. DICK, Philip K. Dick's widow, is suing the estate's productioncompany Electric Shepherd and various others (including the literaryagency and Dick's daughter Laura Leslie), alleging she has been evillydeprived of proceeds from _Ubik_ and _A Scanner Darkly_. [cj] L. RON HUBBARD fans who recall bitter disputes and lawsuits over thecarefully documented biographical revelations in Russell Miller's _Bare-Faced Messiah_ will be surprised to learn that 'the basic outline of L.Ron Hubbard's life is not contested.' All negativity -- including manya judicial condemnation --
has seemingly been excluded from _Scientology_ed. James R. Lewis, published by the Oxford! University! Press! TERRY PRATCHETT unveiled street signs on a new housing estate inWincanton, Somerset, which by popular local vote had been named forstreets in his Discworld city of Ankh-Morpork: Treacle Mine Road andPeach Pie Street.

'Personally I'd pay good money to live somewhere calledTreacle Mine Road.' (_Telegraph_ and _Metro_, 5 and 6 April) [JB] BRIAN STABLEFORD, despite a crippling attack of the third person, feelsquietly smug: 'Thanks to sudden clearance of the revived Borgo Press'sbacklog, Brian Stableford published eight books in the month of March(plus one in January, one in February and one in April), which isprobably not a record but must be a trifle unusual.

The eleven titlespublished so far this year include three novels, three short storycollections, one non-fiction book, three essay collections and ananthology of translations from the French. He has only delivered onevolume so far this year but will deliver another five before the end ofApril, in the hope of maintaining the flow while he is still able towork.'

BRYAN TALBOT outed himself as an artistic cross-dresser -- confessingthat the 'new' 'French' artist Veronique Tanaka, creator of last year'sstylistically weird comic _Metronome_, is in fact Bryan Talbot. [JG] ### CONFERT ### Until 4 May []

SCI-FI LONDON (film), Apollo Piccadilly Cinema, 19 RegentSt, London, SW1Y 4LY. Box office 020 7451 9944. 18-21 May []

SF & FANTASY WRITING (writers' course), Kingston UniversityLondon, Penrhyn Road Campus, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, KT1 2EE. 6pm-9pm. With Paul McAuley. Pounds180; students Pounds120. Contact 020 84177790 or fassshortcourse-info at kingston ac uk. 23-25 May []

PLOKTA.CON 4.0, Sunningdale Park, Berks. Pounds30 reg (alsoat the door), under-17s Pounds15, under-12s free. Rooms Pounds80/nighttwin/double, Pounds60 single. Cheques to _Plokta_ c/o 13 Collette Court,Eleanor Close, London, SE16 6PW; PayPal to mike at plokta dot com. 27 May [] BSFA OPEN MEETING, The Antelope, 22 Eaton Terrace, London, SW1W8EZ. 5/6pm onward. With Jaine Fenn. 31 Jul - 2 Aug [] CONSTITUTION (sf/f/RPG and Unicon) hosting HARMUNI 4(filk), Murray Edwards College (formerly known as New Hall), Cambridge._Now Pounds25 reg_, rising to Pounds30 on 1 July. Contact 207 Campkin Rd,Cambridge, CB4 2LE. 11-13 Sep [] THE ASYLUM (steampunk), Lincoln. _Now Pounds35 reg_. Onlinebooking (Pounds1 surcharge): steampunk.synthasite.com. 10-11 Oct [] OCTOCON 2009, Camden Court Hotel, Camden St, Dublin 2 (_newvenue_ as predicted).

GoH Mike Carey, Dave Lally. Rates still awaited.Contact octocon2009 at gmail com. 19-21 March 10 [] CORFLU COBALT, Winchester Hotel, Winchester.Pounds40/$55 reg or Pounds10/$15 supp _to 31 May 09_. RoomsPounds80/night twin/double. Sterling to 45 Kimberley Gardens, London, N41LD. US$: Robert Lichtman, 11037 Broadway Tce, Oakland, CA 94611-1948,USA. 2-5 Apr 10 [] ODYSSEY 2010 (Eastercon), Radisson Edwardian Hotel,Heathrow, London. _Now Pounds55 reg_. See the website for unwaged,junior, child and infant concessions. Contact: 5 Langhaul Rd, Crookston,Glasgow, G53 7SE. 25-27 Feb 11 [

] REDEMPTION '11 (multimedia sf), Britannia Hotel, FairfaxSt, Coventry, CV1 5RP. _Now Pounds50 reg_. Contact 61 Chaucer Road,Farnborough, Hampshire, GU14 8SP. RUMBLINGS [] _Euro-Worldcon 2014 bid:_ still considering Glasgow, Londonand (a smaller option) the Hague. Constitutional stuff now in progress:Mike Scott and Steve Cooper are standing as co-chairs. [JB]

### INFINITELY IMPROBABLE ###
AS OTHERS SEE SOME OF US. _Vanity Fair_ on the _NY Times_ publisher,Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr:

'While clearly smart, Arthur is not especiallyintellectual. For what it's worth, he is a _Star Trek_ fan.' [GS]The _Daily Telegraph_ reckons Trek fandom is utterly changed by thenew film: 'We all know what your typical Trekkie looks like: he wears arancid, bulging T-shirt over his enormous Comic-Book-Guy-style belly,reeks of Pot Noodles, lives alone, communicates in fluent Klingon andnever tires of explaining that proper Star Trek fans call themselvesTrekkers -- never Trekkies. /

Not any more.' (James Delingpole, 22 April)[MPJ] AWARDS. _Arthur C. Clarke:_ Ian R. MacLeod, _Song of Time_._BSFA._ Novel: Ken MacLeod, _The Night Sessions_. Short: Ted Chiang,'Exhalation' (_Eclipse 2_). Nonfiction: Farah Mendlesohn, _Rhetorics ofFantasy_. Artwork: Andy Bigwood, cover of _Subterfuge_ ed. Ian Whates._Philip K. Dick:_ Adam-Troy Castro, _Emissaries from the Dead_, andDavid Walton, _Terminal Mind_ (tie)._David Gemmell Legend_ (heroic fantasy) shortlist: Joe Abercrombie,_Last Argument of Kings_; Juliet Marillier, _Heir to Sevenwaters_;Brandon Sanderson, _The Hero of Ages_; Andrzej Sapkowski, _Blood ofElves_; Brent Weeks, _The Way of Shadows_._LA Times Book Prizes:_ Terry Pratchett's _Nation_ won the YAcategory._Nebulas._ Novel: Ursula K. Le Guin, _Powers_. Novella: CatherineAsaro, 'The Spacetime Pool' (_Analog_ 3/08). Novelette: John Kessel,'Pride and Prometheus' (_F&SF_ 1/08). Short: Nina Kiriki Hoffman, 'TrophyWives' (_Fellowship Fantastic_).

Script: _WALL-E_. _Andre Norton_ (YA):Ysabeau S. Wilce, _Flora's Dare_ [inordinately long subtitle omitted].New Nebula rules now come into effect, removing 'rolling eligibility' sothe Nebulas are given for work published in the USA in the previouscalendar year only. One oddity of the old system was that the Nebulaspresented in 2007, notionally for 2006, went without exception to workpublished in 2005._SF Hall of Fame_ inductees for 2009: Edward L. Ferman, Frank R.Paul, Michael Whelan, Connie Willis._Tiptree:_ Patrick Ness, _The Knife of Never Letting Go_, and NisiShawl, _Filter House_ (collection). [PM]

BETTER THAN FOOD PILLS. The C.C.W. Flask (Chemically Combined WaterFlask) is not only light and portable, but 'practically inexhaustible'.Thus: 'Strongly made in two compartments, opening by a pinhole apertureinto a common tube near the neck, and filled respectively with purecompressed oxygen and hydrogen, all that was needed was gently to pressa brass stud which, allowing the gases to combine as they issued fromtheir apertures, formed at once H20, or pure water. The flask was said tohold the equivalent of 1,000 gallons of water.' ('Luke Courteney',_Travels in the Interior_, 1887)

And it's very handy for making tea orcoffee: '... by simply pressing the stud harder, and thus allowing thegases to combine more rapidly, I can produce any temperature of water upto boiling.'

[AR] MAGAZINE SCENE. M.J. Simpson reports: 'Visual Imagination appears to beno more. There has been no sign of a new _Starburst_, _Shivers_, _TVZone_ or _Cult Times_ since before Christmas and the company has severaloutstanding court judgements, some of them very large. They still owe metwenty quid but I've written that off. Perhaps Visimag will be reborn butit seems unlikely. / Somewhat more startling is that _Starlog_ seems tohave ceased publication although the website continues as an adjunct tothe still successful _Fangoria_. [...] Both _Starburst_ and _Starlog_have been published continually for more than thirty years.'

_Starlog_describes the suspension of its print edition after issue #374 as'temporary cessation'.At Wildside Press, _H.P. Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror_ has mergedwith _Weird Tales_. [DL]_Apex Magazine_ is suspending publication after its May issue, sayspublisher Jason Sizemore. IN SPELLCHECK VERITAS. From the _Philadelphia Inquirer_'s feature onSamuel R. Delany: '"His range of characters was unprecedented," saidPhiladelphia sci-fi and fantasy writer Michael Swankier, author of _TheDragons of Babel_.' (5 April) Later the piece quotes a curator at the SFHall of Fame saying that SRD was 'writing in opposition to the golden ageof science fiction, with its brassy broads and manly dudes with ray guns'-- an era which, as _PI_ staffer Tirdad Derakhshani helpfully adds, was'ushered in by Asimov and Heinlein'. Ushered in? H'mm.

AS OTHERS SEE US. On _Red Dwarf_ and coolth: ''For all his veniality andselfishness, Cat was a cool, smart dresser, unlike most _Red Dwarf_ fans,who smelt of piss.' (Patrick West, _spiked_, 3 April) [KMcL] R.I.P. _Dave Arneson_ (1947-2009), co-creator with the late Gary Gygaxof the _Dungeons and Dragons_ role-playing game, died from cancer on 7April; he was 61. [MR]_Bea(trice) Arthur_ (1922-2009), US actress who appeared in the dire_Star Wars Holiday Special_ (1978) and did voice work for
_Futurama_,died on 22 April aged 86. [LP]_J.G. Ballard_ (1930-2009), another author who needs nointroduction, died from cancer on 19 April; he was 78. His remarkableshort stories of the late 1950s and through the 1960s, infused withsurrealism and offbeat psychology, rearranged the spectrum of sfpossibilities. Memorable novels followed, moving from the poetic sf of_The Drowned World_ (1962) and _The Crystal World_ (1966) to such near-mainstream fictions as the controversial _Crash_ (1973). His hauntingfictionalization of his own childhood in wartime Shanghai,
_Empire of theSun_ (1984), was a bestseller and was filmed. At his best he depth-charged our minds with unforgettable imagery. Who could forget
'TheVoices of Time'?_Jack Cardiff_ (1914-2009), UK cinematographer who worked on _Thingsto Come_ and _The Man Who Could Work Miracles_ in 1936 and photographed_A Matter of Life and Death_ (1946), died on 22 April aged 94. [BB] Laterwork included _Ghost Story_ (1981) _Conan the Destroyer_ (1984), _Callfrom Space_ (1989) and Poe's _The Tell-Tale Heart_ (2004) -- a longcareer indeed._Tom Deitz_ (1952-2009), US fan and author of some 20 fantasy novelsbeginning with
_Windmaster's Bane_ (1986) and including the 1991-1993Soulsmith trilogy, died on 27 April._John Fairfax_ (1930-2009), UK poet, editor and co-founder of theArvon Foundation, whose _Frontier of Going_ (1969) was an important earlyanthology of sf poetry, died on 14 January; he was 78. [SS]_Hans Holzer_ (1920-2009), Austrian-born paranormal pundit andprolific nonfiction author who studied the 'Amityville Horror' case andwrote two novels about it (plus other supernatural fictions including theRandy Knowles: Psychic Detective series), died on 26 April. He was 89.[PDF]_Larry Maddock_

(Jack Jardine, 1931-2009), US author of the 1960s'Agent of T.E.R.R.A.' series whose 4 volumes began with _The FlyingSaucer Gambit_ (1966), died on 14 April aged 77. [DP] He also wrote asArthur Farmer and, with his wife Julie Ann Jardine, as Howard L Cory._Ken Rand_ (1946-2009), US author of _Phoenix_ (2004), severalsubsequent genre novels and many short stories, died on 21 April; he was62. [L]_Frank Springer_ (1929-2009), US comics artist who worked on _ThePhantom_, _Nick Fury_,

Spider-Man_ and _Batman_ (among others), and alsodrew comics parodies for _National Lampoon_, died on 2 April aged 79.[DKMK] AS OTHERS REMEMBER US. Question from quizmaster Dale Winton on BBC1's _InIt To Win It_: 'Which fictional character was also called LordGreystoke?' _Contestant:_ 'Lawrence of Arabia.'

[PE] TAFF. Steve Green won the 2009 westbound TransAtlantic Fan Fund race witha first-round majority and will travel to this year's Worldcon inMontreal, Canada. Voting: Steve 150, Tom Womack 15, No Preference 10,Hold Over Funds 0.Suzanne Tompkins has published the imaginatively titled _Jerry'sSuzle's 2005 TAFF Trip Report_: $7 from her at PO Box 25075, Seattle, WA98165, USA. Proceeds to TAFF. PUBLISHERS & SINNERS. Sean Wallace is leaving Wildside Press to focus onhis own publishing house Prime Books. His last two projects forWildside's imprint Cosmos Books are both by a shadowy figure calledLangford: _The Limbo Files_ (more old magazine columns; alreadyavailable) and _Starcombing_ (newly collected essays, reviews, columnsand oddments, with a deeply learned introduction by Adam Roberts; shouldbe out this month). All _Ansible_ readers are urged to buy both!

INSIDER TIP. Inktip.com, the US film and tv writers' site, revealed whatsf movie people really want. Sammy Montana, vice-president of TrancasInternational Films, spills the beans: 'We had trouble finding unoriginalideas told in an original way for Sci-Fi pilots. This all changed whenwe found Jeff Reese's "Jake in Flux" on InkTip.'

[AS] MORE ON SINGULARITY U. A Google spokesman reassures us about this new USuniversity (see _A260_): 'Some of the stuff feels very science fictionto me. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. There's an idealism thatspeaks well of the university. When you try to work on the future, you'regoing to be wrong sometimes. A little zaniness goes a long way.'Journalist David Gelles likewise calms our natural fears: 'For all of thesci-fi overtones, the projects that come out of Singularity universitywill be well-intentioned, and it seems unlikely that any maliciousartificial intelligence will be designed in the halls of Ames ResearchCentre -- or at least in SU's corner.' Oh good! (_Financial Times_, 25April) [MMW]

OUTRAGED LETTERS. _Simon R. Green:_ 'I feel like I've been neglecting youof late, so I thought you'd like to know a certain character calledLangford will be horribly killed, in the fourth Secret Histories book,_From Hell with Love_. Remember when you could pay to be written in asa character in the Perry Rhodan books? Maybe you could bribe me notto....'_Lloyd Wood_ on _A261_: '1. My local Waterstone's has a big sign upat the back of the shop saying "Si-Fi". The shape of things to come?

2.Michael Swanwick must have gone to the Tate Modern early in theinstallation's life. I went late, and all that was left of the tradepaperbacks were a few limp foreign-language copies lying, scatteredsparsely, on empty metal bunk frames. All the English books had beennicked. When I try to imagine a shelter from an endless rain accompaniedby bad SF paperbacks, the South Bank Book Market just along the Thamesunder Waterloo bridge springs immediately to mind. Isn't commercesupposed to imitate art, not the other way around?' AS OTHERS LIKEN US. SF is like collateralized debt obligations of asset-backed securities, according to Gillian Tett of the _Financial Times_when asked about such alarming entities:
'Well essentially, that is partof this rich vein of what we call alphabet soup, all these products withweird names that frankly sound like something out of science fiction orsome branch of the pharmaceutical industry.' (NPR interview) [DH] C.O.A. _Eric Lindsay and Jean Weber_,
544 Carlyle Gardens, Beck DriveNorth, Condon, Qld 4815, Australia. _SFX_ moved offices; postal addressunchanged. _Pete Young_, 22 Tippings Lane, Woodley, Berks, RG5 4RX.

AS OTHERS SEE JGB: 'The prescience of Mr. Ballard's work and its harshconflation of the present and the future often resulted in comparisonsto writers like Huxley and Orwell. "His fabulistic style led people toreview his work as science fiction," said Robert Weil, Mr. Ballard'sAmerican editor at Norton. "But that's like calling 'Brave New World'science fiction, or '1984.'"' (Bruce Weber, _New York Times_, 21 April)[MF] And of course no one would ever do that. THOG'S MASTERCLASS. _Dept of Raging Metaphor and Awesome Climax._
'Pennywas a raincloud. Lightning flashed over her office desk as she rained allover her paperwork. As Ross drew closer, he could make out her features,hidden within the swirling cumulonimbus. Obviously, he had come on a badday. He stopped in front of Penny's desk and cleared his throat. Theclouds roiled about darkly as she looked up. "Oh, hi. He's expectingyou." Said flatly, from somewhere within the thunderstorm.' (NicholasYermakov, _Clique_, 1982) [LM]_Gyropygia Dept._

'The [aircraft] carrier shuddered. Men sagged,spun on their bottoms.' (Philip Wylie, _The Answer_, 1955) [PB]_Dept of In Space No One Can ..._ 'Tom [Corbett] looked up and sawthe deep blackness that was space. "It's like looking into a mirror,Roger," he breathed in awe. "Only there isn't any other side -- noreflection."' (Carey Rockwell, _Stand By For Mars!_, 1952) [AR]_Unseen but Evocative Aliens Dept._ 'The alien voices were now acontinuous scream of fear without perceptible inter-modulation, butrapidly becoming thinner as though the members of that unholy choir weresinking one by one and drowning in their terrible pool of treacle.'(Colin Kapp, _The Patterns of Chaos_, 1972)

### GEEKS' CORNER ### SUBSCRIPTIONS. To receive _Ansible_ monthly via e-mail, send a messageto ...ansible-request{at}dcs.gla.ac.uk... with a Subject line reading:subscribe(Message body text irrelevant.) Please send a corresponding'unsubscribe' to resign from this list. You can also manage yoursubscription details at the following URL: https://mr1.dcs.gla.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/ansibleRSS -- http://news.ansible.co.uk/rss.htmlLiveJournal syndication -- http://www.livejournal.com/users/ansiblezine/Back issues -- http://news.ansible.co.uk/_Ansible_ Links -- http://links.ansible.co.uk/Books Received -- http://ansible.co.uk/booksin.html CONVENTION AND EVENT LINKS[] British Isles (plus Eurocon, Worldcon) --http://links.ansible.co.uk[] London meetings/events -- http://news.ansible.co.uk/london.html[] Overseas -- http://news.ansible.co.uk/conlisti.html

### ENDNOTES ### APPARITIONS.[] 8 May 2009: Brum Group, Briar Rose, Bennett Hill, Birmingham citycentre. With John Jarrold. 7:30pm for 8pm. Pounds4; members Pounds3.Contact 07845 897760 or bhamsfgroup at yahoo co uk. Future speakersinclude Jo Fletcher on 10 July. PAYPAL DONATION. Support _Ansible_ and keep the editor happy! Or justbuy his books ... please. http://ansible.co.uk/paypal.html http://ansible.co.uk/books/index.html R.I.P. CONTINUED. _Peter Rogers_ (1914-2009), UK producer of theraucous Carry On film farces, died on 14 April; he was 95. _Carry onScreaming!_ (1966) spoofs the Dracula/Frankenstein movie horror genre,_Carry on Up the Jungle_ (1970) tackles the Tarzan legend, andprehistoric adventures are mocked in 'Carry on Caveman' (1973, not afull-length film but part of a _Carry on Christmas_ tv special).

Ansible 262 Copyright (c) David Langford, 2009. Thanks to James Bacon,Paul Barnett, Barbara Barrett, John Birchby, Paul Di Filippo, MosheFeder, Joe Gordon, Dan Hoey, Martyn P. Jackson, carl juarez, DavidK.M. Klaus, Denny Lien, Locus, Ken MacLeod, Linda Marques, LawrencePerson, David Pringle, Private Eye, Adam Roberts, Marcus Rowland,Graham Sleight, Steve Sneyd, Alex Stewart, Martin Morse Wooster andHero Distributors: Dave Corby (BSFG), Janice Murray (NA),SCIS/Prophecy, Alan Stewart (Australia). 1 May 09 -- David Langford | http://ansible.co.uk/ | http://news.ansible.co.uk/See http://ansible.co.uk/bibcent.html for bibliographical horrors. =============================================

The Turkana Basin .......................By Creacionist Charles.

At Gona, Ethiopia,
2.5 Ma-old stone tools were deposited in ³floodplain
environments, close to margins of channels that carried the volcanic cobbles
used as raw materials for tool manufacture² (Semaw et al. 1997: 333).
Nearby, in the Hata Member of the Bouri Formation, hominid fossils of a
similar age to the Gona deposits were discovered in sediments containing
sandstone with bivalve and gastropod shells ³deposited by fluvial processes
associated with floodplains along distributary channels close to a shallow
fluctuating lake² (de Heinzelin et al. 1999: 625).

This Member also reveals
evidence of cut and percussion marks on bones of medium and large-sized
bovids, though stone tools have so far not been discovered.
The Homo maxilla AL 666, dated to 2.3 Ma, along with a stone tool assemblage
(though no signs of butchering), was recovered from deposits of the Hadar
Formation, suggesting a landscape which was ³predominantly open, with
wetlands and bushed or wooded grasslands, and with stands of trees close to
the water source² (Kimbel et al. 1996: 559).

At Olduvai Gorge Plio-Pleistocene Homo remains are associated with deposits
containing ³cemented aggregates of the small benthic, freshwater clam
Corbicula² as well as crocodiles, hippos and fish (Blumenschine et al. 2003:
1220). Cut and percussion marks are found on a percentage (4.2 and 8.3%
respectively) of the long bones of larger mammals. Fish and gastropods,
judging by the remains of Living sites¹, might have been consumed at
Olduvai Gorge, while the avian fauna included abundant waders (flamingoes,
herons, storks, rails, jacanas, plovers, sandpipers and stilts), swimmers
and divers (grebes, cormorants, pelicans and ducks) as well as marine birds
(gulls, terns and skimmers) (Leakey 1979).

The earliest occurrence of the genus Homo in the Turkana Basin is associated
with flood-plain deposits in which gastropods, fish, crocodiles, bovids,
equids, suids, cercopithecids and hippopotamids occur (Pratt et al. 2005).

During Plio-Pleistocene times the Turkana Basin contained a large lake
fringed by swampy wetlands as indicated by the numerous fossils of hippos,
crocodiles, fish (including a stingray, suggesting a marine connection at
the time), gastropods, bivalves, sponges and numerous ostracods. Lung fish,
water bucks, cane rats, monkeys, giraffes, buffaloes, camels, rhinoceroses
and elephants suggest a rich mosaic of wet, dry, open and closed habitats in
the vicinity of an extensive lake, or large river
Google Groups "uk.people.sf-fans"group.

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