The Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project: inferring the environmental context of human evolution from eastern African rift lake deposits
Author
Cohen, A.Campisano, C.
Arrowsmith, R.
Asrat, A.
Behrensmeyer, A. K.
Deino, A.
Feibel, C.
Hill, A.
Johnson, R.
Kingston, J.
Lamb, H.
Lowenstein, T.
Noren, A.
Olago, D.
Owen, R. B.
Potts, R.
Reed, K.
Renaut, R.
Schäbitz, F.
Tiercelin, J.-J.
Trauth, M. H.
Wynn, J.
Ivory, S.
Brady, K.
O'Grady, R.
Rodysill, J.
Githiri, J.
Russell, J.
Foerster, V.
Dommain, R.
Rucina, S.
Deocampo, D.
Russell, J.
Billingsley, A.
Beck, C.
Dorenbeck, G.
Dullo, L.
Feary, D.
Garello, D.
Gromig, R.
Johnson, T.
Junginger, A.
Karanja, M.
Kimburi, E.
Mbuthia, A.
McCartney, T.
McNulty, E.
Muiruri, V.
Nambiro, E.
Negash, E. W.
Njagi, D.
Wilson, J. N.
Rabideaux, N.
Raub, T.
Sier, M. J.
Smith, P.
Urban, J.
Warren, M.
Yadeta, M.
Yost, C.
Zinaye, B.
Affiliation
Univ Arizona, Dept GeosciIssue Date
2016-02-19
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COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBHCitation
The Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project: inferring the environmental context of human evolution from eastern African rift lake deposits 2016, 21:1 Scientific DrillingJournal
Scientific DrillingRights
© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.Collection Information
This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.Abstract
The role that climate and environmental history may have played in influencing human evolution has been the focus of considerable interest and controversy among paleoanthropologists for decades. Prior attempts to understand the environmental history side of this equation have centered around the study of outcrop sediments and fossils adjacent to where fossil hominins (ancestors or close relatives of modern humans) are found, or from the study of deep sea drill cores. However, outcrop sediments are often highly weathered and thus are unsuitable for some types of paleoclimatic records, and deep sea core records come from long distances away from the actual fossil and stone tool remains. The Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project (HSPDP) was developed to address these issues. The project has focused its efforts on the eastern African Rift Valley, where much of the evidence for early hominins has been recovered. We have collected about 2 km of sediment drill core from six basins in Kenya and Ethiopia, in lake deposits immediately adjacent to important fossil hominin and archaeological sites. Collectively these cores cover in time many of the key transitions and critical intervals in human evolutionary history over the last 4 Ma, such as the earliest stone tools, the origin of our own genus Homo, and the earliest anatomically modern Homo sapiens. Here we document the initial field, physical property, and core description results of the 2012–2014 HSPDP coring campaign.Note
Open access journal.ISSN
1816-3459Version
Final published versionAdditional Links
http://www.sci-dril.net/21/1/2016/ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.5194/sd-21-1-2016
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as © Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.