Publicação

Modern African ecosystems as landscape-scale analogues for reconstructing woody cover and early hominin environments

Detalhes bibliográficos
Resumo:	Reconstructing habitat types available to hominins and inferring how the paleo-landscape changed through time are critical steps in testing hypotheses about the selective pressures that drove the emergence of bipedalism, tool use, a change in diet, and progressive encephalization. Change in the amount and distribution of woody vegetation has been suggested as one of the important factors that shaped early hominin evolution. Previous models for reconstructing woody cover at eastern African hominin fossil sites used global-scale modern soil comparative datasets. Our higher-spatial-resolution study of carbon isotopes in soil organic matter is based on 26 modern African locations, ranging from tropical grass-dominated savannas to forests. We used this dataset to generate a new Eastern Africa especific Woody Cover Model (EAWCM), which indicates that eastern African hominin sites were up to 13% more wooded than reconstructions based on previous models. Reconstructions using the EAWCM indicate widespread woodlands/bushlands and wooded grasslands and a shift toward C4-dominated landscapes in eastern Africa over the last 6 million years.
Autores principais:	Negash, Enquye W.
Outros Autores:	Alemseged, Zeresenay; Barr, W. Andrew; Behrensmeyer, Anna K.; Blumenthal, Scott A.; Bobe, René; Carvalho, Susana; Cerling, Thure E.; Chritz, Kendra L.; McGuire, Elizabeth; Uno, Kevin T.; Wood, Bernard; Wynn, Jonathan G.
Assunto:	Woody cover Carbon isotopes African ecosystems Hominin paleoenvironments
Ano:	2024
País:	Portugal
Tipo de documento:	artigo
Tipo de acesso:	acesso restrito
Instituição associada:	Universidade do Algarve
Idioma:	inglês
Origem:	Sapientia - Universidade do Algarve

Descrição
Resumo:	Reconstructing habitat types available to hominins and inferring how the paleo-landscape changed through time are critical steps in testing hypotheses about the selective pressures that drove the emergence of bipedalism, tool use, a change in diet, and progressive encephalization. Change in the amount and distribution of woody vegetation has been suggested as one of the important factors that shaped early hominin evolution. Previous models for reconstructing woody cover at eastern African hominin fossil sites used global-scale modern soil comparative datasets. Our higher-spatial-resolution study of carbon isotopes in soil organic matter is based on 26 modern African locations, ranging from tropical grass-dominated savannas to forests. We used this dataset to generate a new Eastern Africa especific Woody Cover Model (EAWCM), which indicates that eastern African hominin sites were up to 13% more wooded than reconstructions based on previous models. Reconstructions using the EAWCM indicate widespread woodlands/bushlands and wooded grasslands and a shift toward C4-dominated landscapes in eastern Africa over the last 6 million years.

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