The Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project; inferring the environmental context of human evolution from Eastern African Rift lake deposits
| Online Access: |
Get full text doi: 10.5194/sd-21-1-2016 |
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| Author(s): | Cohen, A.; Campisano, C.; Arrowsmith, R.; Asrat, A.; Behrensmeyer, A. K.; Deino, Alan; Feibel, C.; Hill, A.; Johnson, R.; Kingston, J.; Lamb, H.; Lowenstein, T.; Noren, Anders; Olago, D.; Owen, R. B.; Potts, R.; Reed, K.; Renaut, R.; Schäbitz, F.; Tiercelin, J. J.; Trauth, M. H.; Wynn, J.; Ivory, S.; Brady, K.; O'Grady, Ryan; Rodysill, J.; Githiri, J.; Russell, J.; Foerster, V.; Dommain, R.; Rucina, S.; Deocampo, D.; Russell, J.; Billingsley, A.; Beck, C.; Dorenbeck, G.; Dullo, L.; Feary, D.; Garello, D.; Gromig, R.; Johnson, T.; Junginger, A.; Karanja, M.; Kimburi, E.; Mbuthia, A.; McCartney, T.; McNulty, E.; Muiruri, V.; Nambiro, E.; Negash, E. W.; Njagi, D.; Wilson, J. N.; Rabideaux, N.; Raub, T.; Sier, M. J.; Smith, P.; Urban, J.; Warren, M.; Yadeta, M.; Yost, C.; Zinaye, B. |
| Author Affiliation(s): |
Primary: University of Arizona at Tucson, Department of Geosciences, Tucson, AZ, United States Other: Arizona State University, United States Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia National Museum of Natural History, United States Berkeley Geochronology Center, United States Rutgers University, United States Yale University, United States University of Michigan, United States University of Aberystwyth, United Kingdom Binghamton University, United States University of Minnesota, United States University of Nairobi, Kenya Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong-Kong University of Saskatchewan, Canada University of Cologne, Germany Université de Rennes, France University of Potsdam, Germany University of South Florida, United States Brown University, United States Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya National Museums of Kenya, Kenya Georgia State University, United States Hamilton College, United States University of Minnesota-Duluth, United States University of Tübingen, Germany National Oil Corporation of Kenya, Kenya Tata Chemicals Magadi, Kenya Syracuse University, United States George Washington University, United States University of Saint Andrews, United Kingdom Utrecht University, Netherlands University of New Mexico, United States ConocoPhillips, United States |
| Volume Title: | Scientific Drilling |
| Source: | Scientific Drilling, Vol.21, p.1-16. Publisher: Copernicus GmbH on behalf of the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), Gottingen, International. ISSN: 1816-8957 |
| Note: | In English. 73 refs.; illus., incl. 1 table, strat. cols. |
| Summary: | 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. |
| Year of Publication: | 2016 |
| Research Program: |
ODP Ocean Drilling Program |
| Key Words: | 12 Stratigraphy, Historical Geology and Paleoecology; Africa; Anthropology; Archaeological sites; Archaeology; Awash Valley; Biologic evolution; Cenozoic; Chew Bahir; Chordata; Cores; Drilling; East Africa; East African Lakes; East African Rift; Education; Ethiopia; Eutheria; Fossil man; Hominidae; Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project; Homo; Homo sapiens; International Continental Scientific Drilling Program; Kenya; Lacustrine environment; Lake Baringo; Lake Magadi; Lake sediments; Lithostratigraphy; Lower Pleistocene; Mammalia; Middle Pleistocene; Neogene; Ocean Drilling Program; Paleoenvironment; Paleolakes; Pleistocene; Pliocene; Primates; Public awareness; Quaternary; Sediments; Surveys; Tertiary; Tetrapoda; Theria; Tugen Hills; Turkana Basin; Upper Pleistocene; Upper Pliocene; Vertebrata |
| Coordinates: |
N110000
N110000
E0400000
E0400000 |
| Record ID: | 2017047293 |
| Copyright Information: | GeoRef, Copyright 2019 American Geosciences Institute. Reference includes data from Copernicus Gesellschaft, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany |