Pleistocene Palaeoecology of Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania) through the study of archaeological sediments

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The goal of my doctoral project is to investigate the effects of climate change in East African hominins during the Early Pleistocene (1.7 to 1.5 Ma), and how these early humans interacted with and moved within their environment. More precisely, I want to examine how our earliest human ancestors thrived or perished in the shifting environment of Early Pleistocene Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania). This project will draw on archaeological, palaeoanthropological and geological data to achieve an understanding of the landscape-use patterns of early humans.This project is a continuation of the work I produced for my MSc dissertation on the Geoarchaeology of HWKEE - one of Olduvai Gorge's archaeological sites. This region in East Africa is particularly rich in human remains and artefacts (namely, stone tools). Olduvai Gorge has produced crucial data on our taxonomic tree, on the evolution of hominins, and on two early stone tool technocomplexes - Oldowan and Acheulean. Moreover, part of the research interest devoted to this region is due to its geological framework, as Olduvai Gorge is situated within the East African Rift System, and located in close proximity to the Ngorongoro Volcanic Highland. Archaeological sites at Olduvai Gorge were affected by tectonic, faulting, tilting and subsidence events. Also, environmental changes witnessed at Olduvai Gorge have been associated with an aridification trend.The main goal of this project is to reconstruct palaeoenvironmental changes at Olduvai Gorge, and to understand how these influenced human adaptations in the area. To reach such a goal, in this project I will analyse sediments from lacustrine and peri-lacustrine deposits throughout Olduvai Gorge, focusing on their clayey composition. Clay minerals are important environmental markers, for which their study in this project will help shed light on the type and duration of palaeoenvironmental changes that occurred at this region. Such a study will include, for instance, geochemical, micromorphological and petrographic analyses; methods which I have previously been trained in and used in my MSc dissertation. The information gathered from these analyses will then be compared to palaeoanthropological data obtained for this area, in an effort to understand how these changes influenced the livelihood of hominin groups.Olduvai Gorge is a pillar research area in the study of human evolution. This project represents a further addition of knowledge to a very important part of our deep past, especially concerning our Genus' adaptability to changing landscapes. This is not only a reality that current generations are and will face, but it is also a reality long questioned and associated to several periods of hominin exoduses. Furthermore, the importance of this project also relies on the possibility of shedding new light on behavioural differences between two groups of hominins, Homo habilis and Homo erectus, in regards to their landscape-use patterns.