Survey of Hominin-Bearing Sediments in Western Turkey

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With support from a National Science Foundation award for High Risk Research in Anthropology, Dr. John Kappelman from the University of Texas Austin will carry out paleoanthropological fieldwork in the Denizli region of western Turkey. In 2002, fieldwork in these Plio-Pleistocene deposits produced fossil hominin cranial remains, which suggests additional fossil material may be recoverable. This region represents a geographical crossroads of the Old World and has - to date - been understudied, with relatively much more paleoanthropological fieldwork in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Given Turkey's geographic position, it is likely that various hominin species lived in and migrated across this region.The PI and colleague plans to attempt to recover additional fossil hominins, identify archaeological sites, and study the sedimentological, geochronological, and paleoecological context of the fossils. They will conduct a detailed survey of the travertine quarry where the fossil hominin was discovered, expand the survey into the extensive fluvial and lacustrine sediments that are lateral to and stratigraphically below and above the fossil quarry, study and describe the fauna and sediments along with any stone tools that are recovered, begin a program of radioisotopic and paleomagnetic dating in order to determine the ages of the sediments and fossils, and reconstruct the depositional history and paleoecology. This project promises to greatly expand our understanding of ancient hominins in this critical region of the world and provide new data that can be used to test existing models of fossil hominin dispersal and evolution.