The Mio-Pliocene of the Middle Awash Valley, Ethiopia

埃塞俄比亚中部阿瓦什的多学科研究正在揭示人类起源和进化的重要新维度。这笔资金支持古生物学家、地质学家和地质年代学家。这些项目科学家正在协调他们重建环境的努力，并记录过去600万年非洲的物理、生物和技术变化。该项目将产生各种主题的数据，如全球气候变化（通过与阿拉伯海和亚丁湾邻近的深海钻探岩心的联系揭示），最早的原始人类的古栖息地（通过同位素研究、化石花粉和微型哺乳动物揭示），以及非洲之角的地质演化（通过对火山岩与化石沉积物互层的地层和地质年代学研究揭示）。研究目标包括非洲最古老的人类沉积物，在阿拉米斯，萨甘托尔和库瑟利多拉。该团队将挖掘阿瓦什中央建筑群的沉积物，努力从可追溯到4.4至5.2万年前的火山岩中恢复人类祖先的遗骸。对研究区西部边缘的勘测发现了更古老的沉积物。一项重要的工作将是用放射性测量法确定这些岩石的年代，并从中提取动物遗骸，包括更古老的原始人化石，这些化石应该接近，甚至可能早于人类/猿的分化。该研究项目已经确定，中阿瓦什地区中新世和上新世沉积物是世界上最重要的，可以揭示人类职业生涯的最早阶段。在那里发现的原始人类化石比在奥杜瓦伊峡谷底部发现的化石要古老两倍多，比露西还要古老一百多万年。这项为期三年的研究将从精确控制的空间、时间和环境背景中收集这些地区的全面古生物数据集。这项研究将为深入了解历史打开新的窗口。

Multidisciplinary research in the Middle Awash, Ethiopia, is revealing important new dimensions of human origins and evolution. This funding supports paleontologists, geologists, and geochronologists. These project scientists are coordinating their efforts to reconstruct environments and to document physical, biological, and technological change in Africa over the last six million years. Data on topics as diverse as global climatic change (revealed by connections with adjacent deep-sea drill cores from the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Aden), the paleohabitats of the earliest hominids (revealed by isotopic studies, fossil pollen, and micromammals), and the geological evolution of the Horn of Africa (revealed by stratigraphic and geochronological work on the volcanic rocks interbedded with the fossiliferous sediments) will be generated by the project. Research targets include the oldest hominid-bearing sediments in Africa, at Aramis, Sagantole, and Kuseralee Dora. The team will excavate sediments of the Central Awash Complex in an effort to recover human ancestor remains from between volcanic rocks dated to 4.4 and 5.2 myr. Reconnaissance of the western margin of the study area has revealed even older sediments. A major effort will be made to date these rocks radiometrically, and to extract faunal remains from them, including even older hominid fossils that should approach, and possibly predate, the human/ape divergence. The research project has established that the Miocene and Pliocene sediments of the Middle Awash are the most important in the world for revealing the earliest stages of the human career. The hominid fossils already recovered there are over twice as old as those from the bottom of Olduvai Gorge, and over a million years older than Lucy. The proposed three years of research will gather comprehensive paleontological data sets for these areas from precisely controlled spatial, temporal, and environmental contexts. This research will open new windows on the deep past.