Early Hominin Adaptation in the Southern East African Rift

150多年来广泛的原始人研究仍然留下了关于我们早期祖先进化的几个基本问题。研究课题包括人类早期谱系的觅食策略等。以及它们对气候变化的适应，以及与之相关的靠近主要草地和林地边界的古生态尚未被研究。东非人属的稳定同位素研究。而博伊西拟人猿的饮食主要局限于东非裂谷东支(EAR)的化石证据，主要是图尔卡纳盆地。在2 mA时，同时出现了两组不同的觅食策略：博伊塞人消耗以C4为主的食物，而人消耗更高比例的C3资源。这些结果与生物群在持续炎热的环境中向日益开放的C4草原转移是同步的，最终发展成为现代草原主导的索马里-马赛特有带。由于当时(之前2 Ma)极其罕见的化石发现，缺乏限制早期进化阶段人和P.boisei饮食补偿的起源、时间和进化的数据。与Ear的东部分支相反，该项目专注于耳朵南部基本上未被开发的两个人遗址：(1)更新世-更新世Chiwan do/Chitimwe床(马拉维北部的Karonga盆地)，它是今天树木繁茂的赞比西亚萨凡纳唯一的早期人种所在地，包括H.rudolfensis和P.boisei化石，以及(2)更新世H.erectus产生Manyara床(Manyara盆地，Manyara盆地)位于今天C4草本植物为主的索马里-马赛流行区的一个主要稀树草原边界的北部。该项目将受益于研究早期人类适应的一流设施：除了成熟的d13C、d18O和DD同位素技术外，还包括土壤碳酸盐的成团同位素地球化学和U-Pb测年的新方法。分配独家Senckenberg收集材料是一项独特的附加值，其中包括使用最早的人属化石，以及使用马拉维湖ICDP钻探岩芯材料和在实地新收集的样本。该项目涉及三个工作包：i)耳朵南部的早期鲁道夫人和拟人猿的饮食；ii)东南部非洲稀树草原生态系统的更新世-更新世古温度；以及iii)Manyara盆地的更新世-更新世古植被。这导致了林地草原稀树草原边界上更新世非洲古温度、生态系统模式和早期原始人饮食对比的总体综合。通过土壤碳酸盐U-Pb测年，将获得必要的年代学格架，这将为年代较差的上更新世卡隆加盆地化石沉积提供第一个绝对年龄。

Over 150 years of extensive hominin research still leaves several fundamental questions about the evolution of our early ancestors. Research subjects such as foraging strategies of early stages of the lineages of Homo sp. and Paranthropus boisei, their adaptation to climate change, as well as the associated paleoecology close to major grass- and woodland boundaries have not yet been examined. Stable-isotope based research of East African Homo sp. and Paranthropus boisei diet is mainly limited to fossil evidence from the Eastern Branch of the East African Rift (EAR), mainly the Turkana Basin. At 2 Ma, two groups with distinct foraging strategies were simultaneously present: P. boisei consumed a C4 dominated diet, whereas Homo consumed a higher fraction of C3 resources. These results are concurrent with a biome shift towards increasingly open C4 grasslands in a continuously hot environment, which ultimately developed into the modern grassland-dominated Somali-Masai Endemic Zone. Data that constrain the origin, timing and evolution of the dietary offset of Homo and P. boisei during their early evolutionary stages are lacking, due to extremely rare fossil discoveries of that time (prior 2 Ma).In contrast to the Eastern Branch of the EAR, this project focuses on two hominin sites in the largely underexplored southern part of the EAR: (1) the Plio-Pleistocene Chiwondo/Chitimwe Beds (Karonga Basin, N Malawi), which host the only early hominin locality in today's wooded Zambezian Savanna that comprise H. rudolfensis and P. boisei fossils, and (2) the Pleistocene H. erectus yielding Manyara Beds (Manyara Basin, N Tanzania), located just north of a major savanna boundary in today's C4 grass-dominated Somali-Masai Endemic Zone. The project stands to benefit from excellent facilities in order to study early hominin adaptation: novel methods of clumped isotope geochemistry and U-Pb dating of soil carbonates in addition to the well-established d13C, d18O and dD isotope techniques. The allocation of exclusive Senckenberg collection material, which includes on of the earliest fossils of the genera Homo, as well as the use of Lake Malawi ICDP drill core materials and newly collected samples in the field, is a unique added value. This project addresses three work packages: I) Diet of early Homo rudolfensis and Paranthropus boisei from the southern part of the EAR, II) Plio-Pleistocene paleotemperatures of Southeast African savanna ecosystems, and III) Plio-Pleistocene paleovegetation of the Manyara Basin. These lead to the overarching synthesis of comparing Plio-Pleistocene African paleotemperatures, ecosystem patterns and early hominin diet across a woodland-grassland savanna boundary.The necessary geochronological framework will be obtained through U-Pb dating of soil carbonate, which will provide the first absolute ages for the poorly dated Plio-Pleistocene Karonga Basin fossil bearing deposits.