Part of the extraordinary potential of hyrax middens as palaeoenvironmental archives is the large range of proxies that are contained within them. Initially, when their diachronic nature was less evident, they were viewed as the poor relation to the better studied pack rat middens. While pack rat middens are rich in identifiable macrofossils, which can be directly dated and provide high taxonomic resolution, hyrax middens are poor in macroremains. Those that are found are almost exclusively masticated material that has been incorporated into the deposits as faecal pellets. While some studies have analysed these midden components, more recent work suggests that this approach does not maximise the full potential of hyrax middens as palaeoenvironmental archives
Hyrax middens contain a suite of proxies that have the potential to provide clear insights into past climate and vegetation change. Working within the context of the middens’ stratigraphy, and building on robust chronologies indicating predictable and consistent accumulation rates, sampling methodologies are now more akin to those applied to speleothems rather than to packrat middens. Whereas the early focus was on small (N), as the relative roles of climatic forcing versus vegetation dynamics related to competitive processes within an ecosystem can be better resolved, resulting in a fuller and more reliable understanding of palaeoenvironmental dynamics