Reconstructing the Environmental Context of Human Origins in Eastern Africa Through Scientific Drilling

作     者：Andrew S. Cohen Christopher J. Campisano J. Ramón Arrowsmith Asfawossen Asrat Catherine C. Beck Anna K. Behrensmeyer Alan L. Deino Craig S. Feibel Verena Foerster John D. Kingston Henry F. Lamb Tim K. Lowenstein Rachel L. Lupien Veronica Muiruri Daniel O. Olago R. Bernhart Owen Richard Potts James M. Russell Frank Schaebitz Jeffery R. Stone Martin H. Trauth Chad L. Yost 

作者机构：1Department of Geosciences University of Arizona Tucson Arizona USA email: cohen@email.arizona.edu 2Institute of Human Origins School of Human Evolution and Social Change Arizona State University Tempe Arizona USA 3School of Earth and Space Exploration Arizona State University Tempe Arizona USA 5School of Earth Science Addis Ababa University Addis Ababa Ethiopia 4Department of Mining and Geological Engineering Botswana International University of Science and Technology Palapye Botswana 6Geosciences Department Hamilton College Clinton New York USA 7National Museum of Natural History Smithsonian Institution Washington DC USA 8Berkeley Geochronology Center Berkeley California USA 9Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences Rutgers University Piscataway New Jersey USA 10Institute of Geography Education University of Cologne Cologne Germany 11Department of Anthropology University of Michigan Ann Arbor Michigan USA 13Botany Department School of Natural Sciences Trinity College Dublin Ireland 12Department of Geography and Earth Science Aberystwyth University Aberystwyth United Kingdom 14Department of Geological Sciences and Environmental Studies Binghamton University Binghamton New York USA 15Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Columbia University Pallisades New York USA 16National Museums of Kenya Nairobi Kenya 17Department of Geology University of Nairobi Nairobi Kenya 18Department of Geography Hong Kong Baptist University Hong Kong 19Human Origins Program National Museum of Natural History Smithsonian Institution Washington DC USA 20Department of Earth Environmental and Planetary Sciences Brown University Providence Rhode Island USA 21Department of Earth and Environmental Systems Indiana State University Terre Haute Indiana USA 22Department of Geosciences University of Potsdam Potsdam Germany 

出 版 物：《Earth and Planetary Sciences》 

年 卷 期：1000年第50卷第1期

页      面：451-476页

主　　题：continental scientific drilling human evolution East African Rift paleoclimate 

摘      要：Paleoanthropologists have long speculated about the role of environmental change in shaping human evolution in Africa. In recent years, drill cores of late Neogene lacustrine sedimentary rocks have yielded valuable high-resolution records of climatic and ecosystem change. Eastern African Rift sediments (primarily lake beds) provide an extraordinary range of data in close proximity to important fossil hominin and archaeological sites, allowing critical study of hypotheses that connect environmental history and hominin evolution. We review recent drill-core studies spanning the Plio–Pleistocene boundary (an interval of hominin diversification, including the earliest members of our genus Homo and the oldest stone tools), and the Mid–Upper Pleistocene (spanning the origin of Homo sapiens in Africa and our early technological and dispersal history). Proposed drilling of Africa s oldest lakes promises to extend such records back to the late Miocene. ▪ High-resolution paleoenvironmental records are critical for understanding external drivers of human evolution. ▪ African lake basin drill cores play a critical role in enhancing hominin paleoenvironmental records given their continuity and proximity to key paleoanthropological sites. ▪ The oldest African lakes have the potential to reveal a comprehensive paleoenvironmental context for the entire late Neogene history of hominin evolution.