Digging into 20,000 years of crap

A short item at the Nature website features this photo:

 and explains that it's no ordinary rock she's leaning on:

This might look like an ordinary rock formation, but the black material is actually preserved faeces and urine from a small mammal called a rock hyrax (Procavia capensis).

Hyraxes, which are common in Africa and the Middle East, look like groundhogs but are more closely related to manatees and elephants. They live in crevasses and pick one spot to use as a latrine. The use of the same spot over tens of thousands of years creates a layered refuse heap known as a midden that scientists can mine for palaeoclimatic data. I specialize in examining the pollen in these dungheaps for information about the vegetation and climate of the past.

Our team found this site in May, in the Cape Fold Belt mountains of South Africa, using a drone to help investigate crevasses. We were excited when we saw the extent of this midden; we think it covers at least 20,000 years.

 The article fails to include a photo f a rock hyrax, so I had to Google it:

 Cute!  And very considerate, not pooping all over the place.  :)