Paleonanthropological Research in the Laetoli Area, Tanzania

在过去的50年左右的古生物学研究中，东非遗址对于记录人类进化的最早阶段具有重要意义。 坦桑尼亚北部的莱托利是其中最重要的遗址之一。 玛丽·利基（Mary Leakey）在20世纪70年代末和80年代初在莱托利进行的先前研究导致了重大的新发现，这些新发现为人类和非洲动物群的进化史的理解做出了重大贡献。 虽然这项研究为该地区的地质和古生物学调查奠定了良好的基础，但有证据表明，从Laetoli的持续研究中，仍然可以了解到很多关于人类进化的过程和背景。 该项目的目的是继续进行一项长期的地质和古生物学研究计划，在莱托利地区的上新世地点，这是由PI在1998年夏天发起的。 主要目标是恢复更多的原始人类化石，并获得有关古生物学、地质学、年代测定和古生态学的更详细的背景信息。 在Laetoli地区进行实地研究和勘探的拟议计划提供了产生新数据的潜力，这些数据将大大有助于更好地了解人类进化及其古生态背景的化石证据。 这些研究成果将用于解决古人类学研究中的几个关键问题：（1）阐明早期人类的系统发育关系和分类;（2）更好地理解南方古猿阿法种的解剖学和古生物学--这是解释人类早期进化史的关键物种，（3）对莱托利人科的古生态学关联进行更详细和更严格的评估，以确定可能导致非洲早期人科最初分化和不断多样化的因素。

Paleontological research over the past fifty years or so has demonstratedin spectacular fashion the significance of sites in East Africa fordocumenting the earliest stages in human evolution. Laetoli in northernTanzania is renowned as one of the most important of these sites. Previousresearch at Laetoli by Mary Leakey in the late 1970s and early 1980s led tomajor new discoveries that have contributed significantly to an improvedunderstanding of the evolutionary history of humans and of African faunasin general. Although this research has laid an excellent foundation forgeological and paleontological investigations in the region, it is evidentthat there is still a great deal that can be learned about the course andcontext of human evolution from continued studies at Laetoli. The aim of this project is to continue with a long-term program ofgeological and paleontological research at Pliocene localities in theLaetoli area that was initiated by the PI in the summer of 1998. The mainobjectives are to recover additional fossil hominids and to obtain moredetailed contextual information on the paleontology, geology, dating, andpaleoecology. The proposed program of field research and exploration inthe Laetoli area offers the potential to yield new data that willcontribute significantly to a better understanding of the fossil evidencefor human evolution and its paleoecological context. Results from theseinvestigations will be used to address several key problems in the study ofpaleoanthropology: (1) clarification of the phylogenetic relationships andtaxonomy of early hominids; (2) a better appreciation of the anatomy andpaleobiology of Australopithecus afarensis - a pivotal species in theinterpretation of the early evolutionary history of humans, and (3) thedevelopment of a more detailed and critical assessment of thepaleoecological associations of the Laetoli hominids in order to identifyfactors that may have contributed to the initial divergence and subsequentdiversification of early hominids in Africa.