TY  - JOUR
A1  - Trauth, Martin H.
A1  - Bergner, Andreas G. N.
A1  - Foerster, Verena
A1  - Junginger, Annett
A1  - Maslin, Mark A.
A1  - Schäbitz, Frank
T1  - Episodes of environmental stability versus instability in Late Cenozoic lake records of Eastern Africa
JF  - Journal of human evolution
N2  - Episodes of environmental stability and instability may be equally important for African hominin speciation, dispersal, and cultural innovation. Three examples of a change from stable to unstable environmental conditions are presented on three different time scales: (1) the Mid Holocene (MH) wet dry transition in the Chew Bahir basin (Southern Ethiopian Rift; between 11 ka and 4 ka), (2) the MIS 5-4 transition in the Naivasha basin (Central Kenya Rift; between 160 ka and 50 ka), and (3) the Early Mid Pleistocene Transition (EMPT) in the Olorgesailie basin (Southern Kenya Rift; between 1.25 Ma and 0.4 Ma). A probabilistic age modeling technique is used to determine the timing of these transitions, taking into account possible abrupt changes in the sedimentation rate including episodes of no deposition (hiatuses). Interestingly, the stable-unstable conditions identified in the three records are always associated with an orbitally-induced decrease of insolation: the descending portion of the 800 kyr cycle during the EMPT, declining eccentricity after the 115 ka maximum at the MIS 5-4 transition, and after similar to 10 ka. This observation contributes to an evidence-based discussion of the possible mechanisms causing the switching between environmental stability and instability in Eastern Africa at three different orbital time scales (10,000 to 1,000,000 years) during the Cenozoic. This in turn may lead to great insights into the environmental changes occurring at the same time as hominin speciation, brain expansion, dispersal out of Africa, and cultural innovations and may provide key evidence to build new hypotheses regarding the causes of early human evolution. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
KW  - Paleoclimate
KW  - East Africa
KW  - Human evolution
KW  - Lakes
KW  - Sediments
Y1  - 2015
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.03.011
SN  - 0047-2484
VL  - 87
SP  - 21
EP  - 31
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Cohen, Andrew
A1  - Campisano, C.
A1  - Arrowsmith, J. Ramón
A1  - Asrat, Asfawossen
A1  - Behrensmeyer, A. K.
A1  - Deino, A.
A1  - Feibel, C.
A1  - Hill, A.
A1  - Johnson, R.
A1  - Kingston, J.
A1  - Lamb, Henry F.
A1  - Lowenstein, T.
A1  - Noren, A.
A1  - Olago, D.
A1  - Owen, R. B.
A1  - Potts, R.
A1  - Reed, Kate
A1  - Renaut, R.
A1  - Schäbitz, Frank
A1  - Tiercelin, J. -J.
A1  - Trauth, Martin H.
A1  - Wynn, J.
A1  - Ivory, S.
A1  - Brady, K.
A1  - Rodysill, J.
A1  - Githiri, J.
A1  - Russell, J.
A1  - Förster, Verena
A1  - Dommain, René
A1  - Rucina, S.
A1  - Deocampo, D.
A1  - Russell, J.
A1  - Billingsley, A.
A1  - Beck, C.
A1  - Dorenbeck, G.
A1  - Dullo, L.
A1  - Feary, D.
A1  - Garello, D.
A1  - Gromig, R.
A1  - Johnson, T.
A1  - Junginger, A.
A1  - Karanja, M.
A1  - Kimburi, E.
A1  - Mbuthia, A.
A1  - McCartney, T.
A1  - McNulty, E.
A1  - Muiruri, V.
A1  - Nambiro, E.
A1  - Negash, E. W.
A1  - Njagi, D.
A1  - Wilson, J. N.
A1  - Rabideaux, N.
A1  - Raub, T.
A1  - Sier, M. J.
A1  - Smith, P.
A1  - Urban, J.
A1  - Warren, M.
A1  - Yadeta, M.
A1  - Yost, C.
A1  - Zinaye, B.
T1  - The Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project: inferring the environmental context of human evolution from eastern African rift lake deposits
JF  - Scientific Drilling
N2  - The role that climate and environmental history may have played in influencing human evolution has been the focus of considerable interest and controversy among paleoanthropologists for decades. Prior attempts to understand the environmental history side of this equation have centered around the study of outcrop sediments and fossils adjacent to where fossil hominins (ancestors or close relatives of modern humans) are found, or from the study of deep sea drill cores. However, outcrop sediments are often highly weathered and thus are unsuitable for some types of paleoclimatic records, and deep sea core records come from long distances away from the actual fossil and stone tool remains. The Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project (HSPDP) was developed to address these issues. The project has focused its efforts on the eastern African Rift Valley, where much of the evidence for early hominins has been recovered. We have collected about 2 km of sediment drill core from six basins in Kenya and Ethiopia, in lake deposits immediately adjacent to important fossil hominin and archaeological sites. Collectively these cores cover in time many of the key transitions and critical intervals in human evolutionary history over the last 4 Ma, such as the earliest stone tools, the origin of our own genus Homo, and the earliest anatomically modern Homo sapiens. Here we document the initial field, physical property, and core description results of the 2012-2014 HSPDP coring campaign.
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.5194/sd-21-1-2016
SN  - 1816-8957
SN  - 1816-3459
VL  - 21
SP  - 1
EP  - 16
PB  - Copernicus
CY  - Göttingen
ER  -