Elzanne Singels
Biographic Data
| ID | 122098 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Elzanne Singels |
| GIVEN NAMES | Elzanne |
| FAMILY NAME | Singels |
| SIGNATURE | SINGELS E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cape Town |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0347-5744 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 7 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 58 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 7 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Ranking of Cape Geophytes by Proxies for the Benefits and Costs of Harvesting their Underground Storage Organs
The Cape Floristic Region (CFR) has the world’s highest diversity of plants with underground storage organs (USOs). This rich USO flora has been proposed as a key food source for modern humans in the Late Pleistocene. For 130 Cape geophyte species, we quantified proxies for energetic benefits (USO size and nutrient content) and harvesting costs (USO depth and anti‐nutrients), then ranked species by their likely attractiveness to foragers. We iden…
Spatial and temporal variation in the diversity, abundance, and energetic returns of underground storage organs on the coastal lowlands of the Cape Floristic Region, South Africa
Grit and consequence
Grit is implicated in several biological phenomena—it wears teeth, it fractures teeth, it drives tooth evolution, it elicits complex manual manipulations—any one of which could be described as a central topic in evolutionary anthropology. But what is grit? We hardly know because we tend to privilege the consequences of grit (it is abrasive) over its formal features, all but ignoring crucial variables such as mineral composition, material properti…
Modern soil phytolith assemblages used as proxies for Paleoscape reconstruction on the south coast of South Africa
Foraging potential of underground storage organ plants in the southern Cape, South Africa
Foraging potential of underground storage organ plants in the southern Cape, South Africa
Underground storage organs (USOs) serve as a staple source of carbohydrates for many hunter-gatherer societies and they feature prominently in discussions of diets of early modern humans. While the way of life of hunter-gatherers in South Africa’s Cape is no longer in existence, there is extensive ethnographic, historical and archaeological evidence of hunter-gatherers’ use of such plants as foodstuffs. This is to be expected, given that the Cape…
Stone Age people in a changing South African Greater Cape Floristic Region
The human origins story (palaeoanthropology) is often set in the African Palaeotropics, yet the Greater Cape Floristic Region (GCFR) plays an internationally prominent role that surpasses its small size. Some of the earliest evidence for the complex behaviours associated with fully modern humans is found here, with prehistoric stone age hunter-gatherers adapting to a unique and changing environment from about 1 million years ago to near-present. …
Stone Age people in a changing South African Greater Cape Floristic Region
The human origins story (palaeoanthropology) is often set in the African Palaeotropics, yet the Greater Cape Floristic Region (GCFR) plays an internationally prominent role that surpasses its small size. Some of the earliest evidence for the complex behaviours associated with fully modern humans is found here, with prehistoric stone age hunter-gatherers adapting to a unique and changing environment from about 1 million years ago to near-present. …
Foraging potential of underground storage organ plants in the southern Cape, South Africa
Underground storage organs (USOs) serve as a staple source of carbohydrates for many hunter-gatherer societies and they feature prominently in discussions of diets of early modern humans. While the way of life of hunter-gatherers in South Africa’s Cape is no longer in existence, there is extensive ethnographic, historical and archaeological evidence of hunter-gatherers’ use of such plants as foodstuffs. This is to be expected, given that the Cape…
Modern soil phytolith assemblages used as proxies for Paleoscape reconstruction on the south coast of South Africa
Foraging potential of underground storage organ plants in the southern Cape, South Africa
Grit and consequence
Grit is implicated in several biological phenomena—it wears teeth, it fractures teeth, it drives tooth evolution, it elicits complex manual manipulations—any one of which could be described as a central topic in evolutionary anthropology. But what is grit? We hardly know because we tend to privilege the consequences of grit (it is abrasive) over its formal features, all but ignoring crucial variables such as mineral composition, material properti…
Ranking of Cape Geophytes by Proxies for the Benefits and Costs of Harvesting their Underground Storage Organs
The Cape Floristic Region (CFR) has the world’s highest diversity of plants with underground storage organs (USOs). This rich USO flora has been proposed as a key food source for modern humans in the Late Pleistocene. For 130 Cape geophyte species, we quantified proxies for energetic benefits (USO size and nutrient content) and harvesting costs (USO depth and anti‐nutrients), then ranked species by their likely attractiveness to foragers. We iden…
Spatial and temporal variation in the diversity, abundance, and energetic returns of underground storage organs on the coastal lowlands of the Cape Floristic Region, South Africa
Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (6 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (5 works) · Biology (5 works) · Cape (5 works) · Archaeology (4 works) · Geography (4 works) · Middle Stone Age (4 works) · Ecology (3 works) · Ecology (3 works) · Extant taxon (3 works)