TABLE 1. Fitting surfaces of fossil eggshell fragments to intact extant eggshells using root mean square values.
Within cells, top lines refer to rigid fits, where only rotations and translations were used, while bottom lines correspond to rigid and scaled fits, where both the size of the fossil fragment and rotations/translations were used to arrive at the best ‘fit’. Rigid and scaled fits were performed after arriving at the best ‘fit’ using rigid fits (i.e., rotations and translations only). (a)Values are best-fitting black eagle examples from Table 2: TM 33879, TM42505, TM43471, and TM43505 for fragment T92-88; TM 088 for fragment T93-17. (b)Values are best-fitting guinea fowl examples from Table 3: eggs 2, 4, and 5 for fragment T92-88; egg 5 for fragment T93-17. (c)Fragment includes either the apical or blunt pole so both were assessed. *best match in surface curvature fitting. Number of iterations to achieve an RMS change less than 0.001 are reported in parentheses for each line.
TABLE 2 . Fitting surfaces of fossil eggshell fragments to intact extant Black eagle eggshells using root mean square values.
Within cells, top lines refers to rigid fits, where only rotations and translations were used, while bottom lines correspond to rigid and scaled fits, where both the size of the fossil fragment and rotations/translations were used to arrive at the best ‘fit’. Rigid and scaled fits were performed after arriving at the best ‘fit’ using rigid fits (i.e., rotations and translations only). (a)Egg from an infertile zoo individual. (b)Fragment includes either the apical or blunt pole so both were assessed. *best match in surface curvature fitting amongst non-zoo specimens. Number of iterations to achieve an RMS change less than 0.001 are reported in parentheses.
TABLE 3 . Fitting surfaces of fossil eggshell fragments to intact extant Guinea fowl eggshells using root mean square values.
Within cells, top lines refers to rigid fits, where only rotations and translations were used, while bottom lines correspond to rigid and scaled fits, where both the size of the fossil fragment and rotations/translations were used to arrive at the best ‘fit’. Rigid and scaled fits were performed after arriving at the best ‘fit’ using rigid fits (i.e., rotations and translations only). (a)Fragment includes either the apical or blunt pole so both were assessed. *best match in surface curvature fitting. Number of iterations to achieve an RMS change less than 0.001 are reported in parentheses.
TABLE 4. Carbon and oxygen isotope data for fossil eggshells, eggshell fragments and sediment all collected from the Plio-Pleistocene PCS calcrete exposed at the base of the Dart Pinnacle, Taung.
