Recovery and Analysis of Early Pleistocene Hominin Fossils and Footprints, Ileret, Kenya

最近，在肯尼亚一处150万年前的遗址(FwJj14)发现了大约一半的相关原始人类(人类祖先和灭绝的亲属)上肢骨骼和几层含有原始人类和其他动物足迹的沉积物。这一奖项延续了这一重要发现的田野工作。它的目标是1)恢复更多新发现的可能属于已灭绝的人类近亲--博伊塞人的相关原始人骨骼；2)挖掘、扫描和分析FwJj14E的三个足迹层，其中包括两个具有原始人足迹的层；以及3)挖掘、扫描和分析GaJi10的一个足迹层，该层也保留了原始人足迹。这些发现提供了一个独特的机会来检验长期存在的假设，提出新的问题，并极大地提高我们对手部和上肢解剖、两足步态、行为和环境背景的理解，在人类进化史上的这个关键时刻。该项目通过促进跨学科和国际合作，改善非洲学者的培训，以及改善美国古人类学中的种族代表性，为科学界提供了许多可衡量的更广泛的影响。这些数据以及足迹的3D扫描数据将向肯尼亚国家博物馆、其他学者和人类起源数据库开放，该数据库即将通过史密森国家自然历史博物馆向公众开放。该项目将加强国际(美国-肯尼亚-南非-英国)和美国国内(乔治·华盛顿大学-詹姆斯·麦迪逊大学-史密森学会-罗格斯大学)之间的合作。此外，该项目显示了对来自古人类学代表性不足群体(例如，非洲裔美国人、西班牙裔)的美国学生以及来自肯尼亚和南非的研究生的坚定承诺。

Recently about half of an associated hominin (human ancestors and extinct relatives) upper limb skeleton and several layers of sediment containing hominin and other animal footprints were discovered at a 1.5 million-year old site (FwJj14) in Kenya. This award continues the fieldwork on this important discovery. Its goals are to 1) recover more of the newly-discovered associated hominin skeleton likely belonging to the extinct human relative, Paranthropus boisei; 2) excavate, scan, and analyze three footprint layers at FwJj14E, including two layers with hominin footprints; and 3) excavate, scan and analyze a footprint layer at GaJi10 that also preserves hominin prints. These discoveries offer a unique opportunity to test long-standing hypotheses, ask novel questions, and dramatically improve our understanding of hand and upper limb anatomy, bipedal gait, behavior, and environmental context of sympatric hominins during this critical time in human evolutionary history. This project offers a number of measurable broader impacts for the scientific community by fostering interdisciplinary and international collaboration, improving training of African scholars, and improving ethnic representation in paleoanthropology in the US. The data as well as 3D scan data of footprints will be available to the National Museum of Kenya, other scholars, and the Human Origins Database, soon-to-be publicly accessible through the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. This project will strengthen international (US-Kenya-South Africa-UK) and, within the US, inter-institutional (George Washington University-James Madison University-Smithsonian Institution-Rutgers University) collaborations. Furthermore, this project demonstrates a strong commitment to train US students from groups underrepresented (e.g., African-American, Hispanic) in paleoanthropology, as well as graduate students from Kenya and South Africa.