TY  - JOUR
A1  - Foerster, Verena
A1  - Asrat, Asfawossen
A1  - Ramsey, Christopher Bronk
A1  - Brown, Erik T.
A1  - Chapot, Melissa S.
A1  - Deino, Alan
A1  - Düsing, Walter
A1  - Grove, Matthew
A1  - Hahn, Annette
A1  - Junginger, Annett
A1  - Kaboth-Bahr, Stefanie
A1  - Lane, Christine S.
A1  - Opitz, Stephan
A1  - Noren, Anders
A1  - Roberts, Helen M.
A1  - Stockhecke, Mona
A1  - Tiedemann, Ralph
A1  - Vidal, Celine M.
A1  - Vogelsang, Ralf
A1  - Cohen, Andrew S.
A1  - Lamb, Henry F.
A1  - Schaebitz, Frank
A1  - Trauth, Martin H.
T1  - Pleistocene climate variability in eastern Africa influenced hominin evolution
JF  - Nature geoscience
N2  - Despite more than half a century of hominin fossil discoveries in eastern Africa, the regional environmental context of hominin evolution and dispersal is not well established due to the lack of continuous palaeoenvironmental records from one of the proven habitats of early human populations, particularly for the Pleistocene epoch. Here we present a 620,000-year environmental record from Chew Bahir, southern Ethiopia, which is proximal to key fossil sites. Our record documents the potential influence of different episodes of climatic variability on hominin biological and cultural transformation. The appearance of high anatomical diversity in hominin groups coincides with long-lasting and relatively stable humid conditions from similar to 620,000 to 275,000 years bp (episodes 1-6), interrupted by several abrupt and extreme hydroclimate perturbations. A pattern of pronounced climatic cyclicity transformed habitats during episodes 7-9 (similar to 275,000-60,000 years bp), a crucial phase encompassing the gradual transition from Acheulean to Middle Stone Age technologies, the emergence of Homo sapiens in eastern Africa and key human social and cultural innovations. Those accumulative innovations plus the alignment of humid pulses between northeastern Africa and the eastern Mediterranean during high-frequency climate oscillations of episodes 10-12 (similar to 60,000-10,000 years bp) could have facilitated the global dispersal of H. sapiens.
KW  - Evolutionary ecology
KW  - Limnology
KW  - Palaeoclimate
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-01032-y
SN  - 1752-0894
SN  - 1752-0908
VL  - 15
IS  - 10
SP  - 805
EP  - 811
PB  - Nature Publ. Group
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Trauth, Martin H.
A1  - Maslin, Mark A.
A1  - Deino, Alan L.
A1  - Junginger, Annett
A1  - Lesoloyia, Moses
A1  - Odada, Eric O.
A1  - Olago, Daniel O.
A1  - Olaka, Lydia A.
A1  - Strecker, Manfred
A1  - Tiedemann, Ralph
T1  - Human evolution in a variable environment : the amplifier lakes of Eastern Africa
N2  - The development of rise Cenozoic East African Rift System (EARS) profoundly re-shaped the landscape and significantly increased the amplitude of short-term environmental response to climate variation. In particular, the development of amplifier lakes in rift basins after three million years ago significantly contributed to this exceptional sensitivity of East Africa to climate change compared to elsewhere on the African continent. Amplifier lakes are characterized by tectonically-formed graben morphologies in combination with an extreme contrast between high precipitation in the elevated parts of the catchment and high evaporation in the lake area. Such amplifier lakes respond rapidly to moderate, precessional-forced climate shifts, and as they do so apply dramatic environmental pressure to the biosphere. Rift basins, when either extremely dry or lake-filled, form important barriers for migration, mixing and competition of different populations of animals and hominins. Amplifier lakes link long-term, high-amplitude tectonic processes and short-term environmental fluctuations. East Africa may have become the place where early humans evolved as a consequence of this strong link between different time scales. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Y1  - 2010
UR  - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/02773791
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.07.007
SN  - 0277-3791
ER  -