Perning Homo erectus District, East Java-Paleoenvironment and Dating

项目地质学家、古生物学家和人类学家将利用地质实地观察和新收集的化石来描述爪哇古代热带海岸沿着早期人类祖先的饮食资源和栖息地。 该区域是一个20平方公里的海洋三角洲沉积物露头，1936年在这里发现了Perning/Mojokerto直立人头骨帽。人科沉积物由附近火山喷发的物质组成，放射性同位素方法测定了床层中火山产物的年龄为1.81 +/- 0.04 Ma。 本项目将获得新的放射性同位素年代，以更全面地记录含原始人化石的部分的年龄，但Perning原始人化石已经肯定是海洋海岸沉积物中已知的最古老的原始人化石。确定原始人化石的饮食是我们追踪人类进化核心的生物和行为适应的主要方法之一。 由于Perning原始人类床的年代久远，该项目在人类发展的关键时刻解决饮食问题，当时早期人属在旧世界的扩张无疑将我们的祖先带到了非洲大陆内陆未知的栖息地和食物资源。 关于早期人属在非洲生活的条件，现在有相当多的信息，来自亚洲的证据也越来越多，证明近200万年前的原始人在扩张。 然而，与扩散相关的生态和行为变化不能完全理解，直到有新的古环境数据，从年代久远的亚洲网站。 爪哇是亚洲最有价值的地方之一，因为直立人可能已经在爪哇雨林和海岸居住了180万年。 古Perning三角洲的古环境重建将基于花粉，软体动物和脊椎动物化石，以及沉积相的详细观察。 将Perning的古环境结果与亚洲和非洲同时代人科动物地点的结果进行比较，有望为早期人属在旧世界扩张所涉及的行为模式提供新的见解。例如，该项目收集的地质观测和化石将用于确定Perning的古代海岸是否提供了与现代印度尼西亚相似的森林/海岸线食物资源，或者在某种程度上类似于非洲和欧亚大陆古代原始人生活的稀树草原/林地。 如果实地项目导致新的原始人类发现，他们可能会提供机会，以辐射计确定亚洲最早的人类居民的年龄，并将他们与特定的沿海古栖息地联系起来。 新的原始人类化石还将提供关于最早亚洲人身体特征的急需信息。

Project geologists, paleontologists, and anthropologists will use geological field observations and newly collected fossils to characterize the dietary resources and habitats that were available to early human ancestors along an ancient tropical coast in Java. The field area is a 20km2 outcrop of marine deltaic deposits where the Perning/Mojokerto Homo erectus skull cap was discovered in 1936. The hominid deposits are made up of material erupted from nearby volcanoes, and volcanic products from the beds have been dated by radioisotopic methods at 1.81 +/- 0.04 Ma. New radioisotopic dates will be obtained in this project to more fully document the age of the hominid-bearing section, but the Perning hominid is already certain to be the oldest known from marine coast sediments.Determining the diets of fossil hominids is one of the primary ways that we track the biological and behavioral adaptations lying at the core of human evolution. Because of the great age of the Perning hominid beds, this project addresses diets at a pivotal point in human development when expansion of early Homo across the Old World doubtlessly introduced our ancestors to habitats and food resources unknown in the continental interior of Africa. Considerable information now exists on the conditions in which early Homo lived in Africa, and from Asia evidence is mounting for hominid expansion nearly two million years ago. However, the ecology and behavioral changes associated with the dispersal cannot be fully understood until there are new paleoenvironmental data from well-dated Asian sites. Java is among the most valuable places in Asia for information of this kind, since Homo erectus may have inhabited Javan rainforests and seacoasts for 1.8 million years. Paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the ancient Perning delta will be based upon pollen-, mollusk-, and vertebrate-fossils, as well as detailed observations of sedimentary facies. Comparing the paleoenvironmental results from Perning to those from contemporaneous hominid localities in Asia and Africa is expected to provide new insights into the behavioral patterns involved in the expansion of early Homo across the Old World. The geological observations and fossils collected in the project will be used, for example, to determine whether the ancient coast at Perning offered forest/shoreline dietary resources similar to those in modern Indonesia, or was somehow like the savannas/woodlands in which the ancient hominids of Africa and Eurasia lived. If the field program leads to new hominid discoveries, they will likely afford opportunities to radiometrically date some of Asia's earliest human inhabitants, and link them to specific coastal paleohabitats. New hominid fossils will also provide much needed information on the physical attributes of earliest Asians.