Description of contents of unopened bamboo corsets and crates from Quarry Ig/WJ of the Tendaguru locality (Late Jurassic, Tanzania, East Africa) as revealed by medical CT data and the potential of this data under paleontological and historical aspects

Abstract

The German Tendaguru Expedition from 1909 to 1913 to Southern Tanzania (then the German colony Deutsch-Ostafrika) was one of the most successful field campaigns for fossil vertebrates. Forty still originally packed and unopened bamboo corsets and six wooden crates containing vertebrate fossils excavated at Quarry Ig/WJ in the Tend-aguru area are preserved at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. Studies of the containers with a medical CT scanner made it possible to visualize the packed fossil specimens, which had either a clay protection cover, were still in sediment, or were found as clusters of small vertebrae and tin cans filled with small bones. The majority of bones belong to the small ornithopod Dysalotosaurus, supplemented by a few remains of the thyreophoran dinosaur Kentrosaurus and sauropod dinosaurs. Criteria for the prioritization of preparation of the material are defined based on their paleonto-logical importance plus their historical value as evidence for an excavation campaign carried out under colonial conditions. Therefore, it is suggested that a few of the original containers be preserved in their original condition. This study provides a nonde-structive way to assess information about historical, unprepared fossil material, as well as virtual access to these containers. In its original preservation, the described whole suite of containers is historical evidence of the hard and substantial excavation work of many local people from the Tendaguru area, and it documents historical collection practices including colonial preparation and field practices at the Tendaguru fossil site.