An Ecosystem approach to Hominin Environments in the East African plio-Pleistocene

东非上古-更新世古人类环境的生态系统方法

• 批准号: 0137235
• 负责人: Rene Bobe
• 金额: $ 13.51万
• 依托单位: Smithsonian Institution
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-02-01 至 2004-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0137235&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Ecosystem; approach; Hominin; Environments; East

The study of human adaptation and evolution is intimately tied to knowledge of the environments in which humans evolved. These environments have space-time dimensions that must be understood in order to answer key questions about how environmental change affected early human evolution. According to one hypothesis, global climatic change between 2 and 3 million years ago was responsible for a major evolutionary radiation of mammals in Africa that included our direct ancestors. It is likely that climate did affect human evolution in some way, but exactly how and when this happened remains controversial. Some researchers believe that empirical evidence has not yet demonstrated the role of climate change in African mammal evolution. Preservation biases in the fossil record, differing data-collection methods, and varying levels of chronological and spatial resolution across fossil localities in Africa must be carefully examined and controlled in order to rigorously test the climate change hypothesis. This project will test the linkage between the global climatic record and changes in mammal faunas from terrestrial ecosystems in Africa between 5 and 1 million years ago. The focus will be on the Turkana Basin of Kenya and Ethiopia and the Hadar-Dikika region of northern Ethiopia, two of the major sources of fossils of human ancestors (hominins) as well as a rich record of other mammals. The Turkana Basin Paleoecology Database will be assembled from existing separate datasets, museum collections, and new field initiatives that use standardized sampling of selected stratigraphic intervals. Comparisons with the Hadar-Dikika region will draw from the existing Hadar Faunal Database and new data collected in the field. The resulting information will demonstrate what environments were inhabited by early hominins in East Africa and how these environments changed through time, what mammal species early hominins were most closely associated with, and how global climate records correlate with terrestrial faunal and archeological change at different spatial and temporal scales. Information and interpretations derived from this research will be made available to the public via scientific journals, public science education media, and the internet.

人类适应和进化的研究与人类进化的环境知识密切相关。这些环境具有时空维度，必须理解这些维度，才能回答有关环境变化如何影响早期人类进化的关键问题。根据一种假设，200万至300万年前的全球气候变化是非洲哺乳动物（包括我们的直系祖先）进化的主要原因。气候很可能确实以某种方式影响了人类的进化，但这究竟是如何以及何时发生的仍然存在争议。一些研究人员认为，经验证据尚未证明气候变化在非洲哺乳动物进化中的作用。化石记录中的保存偏差，不同的数据收集方法，以及非洲化石地点不同的时间和空间分辨率水平，必须仔细检查和控制，以严格测试气候变化假设。该项目将检验全球气候记录与500万至100万年前非洲陆地生态系统哺乳动物群变化之间的联系。重点将放在肯尼亚和埃塞俄比亚的图尔卡纳盆地以及埃塞俄比亚北方的Hadar-Dikika地区，这两个地区是人类祖先（原始人）化石的主要来源，也是其他哺乳动物的丰富记录。图尔卡纳盆地古生态学数据库将由现有的独立数据集、博物馆藏品和新的实地项目组成，这些项目使用选定地层间隔的标准化采样。将利用现有的哈达尔动物数据库和实地收集的新数据与哈达尔-迪基卡地区进行比较。由此产生的信息将展示东非早期人类居住的环境以及这些环境如何随着时间的推移而变化，早期人类与哪些哺乳动物物种关系最密切，以及全球气候记录如何与不同时空尺度的陆地动物群和考古学变化相关。从这项研究中获得的信息和解释将通过科学期刊，公共科学教育媒体和互联网向公众提供。