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Rowan J, Lazagabaster IA, Campisano CJ, Bibi F, Bobe R, Boisserie JR, Frost SR, Getachew T, Gilbert CC, Lewis ME, Melaku S, Scott E, Souron A, Werdelin L, Kimbel WH, Reed KE. Early Pleistocene large mammals from Maka'amitalu, Hadar, lower Awash Valley, Ethiopia. PeerJ 2022; 10:e13210. [PMID: 35411256 PMCID: PMC8994497 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.13210] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/03/2021] [Accepted: 03/10/2022] [Indexed: 01/12/2023] Open
Abstract
The Early Pleistocene was a critical time period in the evolution of eastern African mammal faunas, but fossil assemblages sampling this interval are poorly known from Ethiopia's Afar Depression. Field work by the Hadar Research Project in the Busidima Formation exposures (~2.7-0.8 Ma) of Hadar in the lower Awash Valley, resulted in the recovery of an early Homo maxilla (A.L. 666-1) with associated stone tools and fauna from the Maka'amitalu basin in the 1990s. These assemblages are dated to ~2.35 Ma by the Bouroukie Tuff 3 (BKT-3). Continued work by the Hadar Research Project over the last two decades has greatly expanded the faunal collection. Here, we provide a comprehensive account of the Maka'amitalu large mammals (Artiodactyla, Carnivora, Perissodactyla, Primates, and Proboscidea) and discuss their paleoecological and biochronological significance. The size of the Maka'amitalu assemblage is small compared to those from the Hadar Formation (3.45-2.95 Ma) and Ledi-Geraru (2.8-2.6 Ma) but includes at least 20 taxa. Bovids, suids, and Theropithecus are common in terms of both species richness and abundance, whereas carnivorans, equids, and megaherbivores are rare. While the taxonomic composition of the Maka'amitalu fauna indicates significant species turnover from the Hadar Formation and Ledi-Geraru deposits, turnover seems to have occurred at a constant rate through time as taxonomic dissimilarity between adjacent fossil assemblages is strongly predicted by their age difference. A similar pattern characterizes functional ecological turnover, with only subtle changes in dietary proportions, body size proportions, and bovid abundances across the composite lower Awash sequence. Biochronological comparisons with other sites in eastern Africa suggest that the taxa recovered from the Maka'amitalu are broadly consistent with the reported age of the BKT-3 tuff. Considering the age of BKT-3 and biochronology, a range of 2.4-1.9 Ma is most likely for the faunal assemblage.
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Affiliation(s)
- John Rowan
- Department of Anthropology, University at Albany, Albany, New York, United States
| | | | - Christopher J. Campisano
- Institute of Human Origins, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States
| | | | - René Bobe
- Primate Models for Behavioural Evolution, Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, School of Anthropology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom,Gorongosa National Park, Sofala, Mozambique,Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeology and Evolution of Human Behavior (ICArEHB), Universidade do Algarve, Faro, Portugal
| | - Jean-Renaud Boisserie
- Laboratoire Paléontologie Évolution Paléoécosystèmes Paléoprimatologie, Université de Poitiers, Poitiers, France,Centre Français des Etudes Ethiopiennes (CNRS and Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Ambassade de France, Ethiopia), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
| | - Stephen R. Frost
- Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, United States
| | - Tomas Getachew
- Laboratoire Paléontologie Évolution Paléoécosystèmes Paléoprimatologie, Université de Poitiers, Poitiers, France,Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
| | - Christopher C. Gilbert
- Department of Anthropology, City University of New York, Hunter College, New York, United States,New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology (NYCEP), New York, United States
| | - Margaret E. Lewis
- Biology Program, School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Stockton University, Galloway, New Jersey, United States
| | - Sahleselasie Melaku
- Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,Paleoanthropology and Paleoenvironment Program, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
| | - Eric Scott
- Cogstone Resource Management Inc, Orange, California, United States,Department of Biology, California State University, San Bernardino, San Bernardino, California, United States
| | | | - Lars Werdelin
- Department of Palaeobiology, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - William H. Kimbel
- Institute of Human Origins, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States
| | - Kaye E. Reed
- Institute of Human Origins, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States
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Faith JT, Rowan J, Du A, Koch PL. Plio-Pleistocene decline of African megaherbivores: No evidence for ancient hominin impacts. Science 2019; 362:938-941. [PMID: 30467167 DOI: 10.1126/science.aau2728] [Citation(s) in RCA: 43] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/23/2018] [Accepted: 09/28/2018] [Indexed: 12/24/2022]
Abstract
It has long been proposed that pre-modern hominin impacts drove extinctions and shaped the evolutionary history of Africa's exceptionally diverse large mammal communities, but this hypothesis has yet to be rigorously tested. We analyzed eastern African herbivore communities spanning the past 7 million years-encompassing the entirety of hominin evolutionary history-to test the hypothesis that top-down impacts of tool-bearing, meat-eating hominins contributed to the demise of megaherbivores prior to the emergence of Homo sapiens We document a steady, long-term decline of megaherbivores beginning ~4.6 million years ago, long before the appearance of hominin species capable of exerting top-down control of large mammal communities and predating evidence for hominin interactions with megaherbivore prey. Expansion of C4 grasslands can account for the loss of megaherbivore diversity.
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Affiliation(s)
- J Tyler Faith
- Natural History Museum of Utah, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84108, USA. .,Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
| | - John Rowan
- Institute of Human Origins and School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85282, USA.,Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA
| | - Andrew Du
- Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
| | - Paul L Koch
- Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
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Bibi F, Pante M, Souron A, Stewart K, Varela S, Werdelin L, Boisserie JR, Fortelius M, Hlusko L, Njau J, de la Torre I. Paleoecology of the Serengeti during the Oldowan-Acheulean transition at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania: The mammal and fish evidence. J Hum Evol 2018; 120:48-75. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2017.10.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/03/2017] [Revised: 10/12/2017] [Accepted: 10/14/2017] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
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de la Torre I. The origins of the Acheulean: past and present perspectives on a major transition in human evolution. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2017; 371:rstb.2015.0245. [PMID: 27298475 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0245] [Citation(s) in RCA: 62] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 03/29/2016] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
The emergence of the Acheulean from the earlier Oldowan constitutes a major transition in human evolution, the theme of this special issue. This paper discusses the evidence for the origins of the Acheulean, a cornerstone in the history of human technology, from two perspectives; firstly, a review of the history of investigations on Acheulean research is presented. This approach introduces the evolution of theories throughout the development of the discipline, and reviews the way in which cumulative knowledge led to the prevalent explanatory framework for the emergence of the Acheulean. The second part presents the current state of the art in Acheulean origins research, and reviews the hard evidence for the appearance of this technology in Africa around 1.7 Ma, and its significance for the evolutionary history of Homo erectusThis article is part of the themed issue 'Major transitions in human evolution'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ignacio de la Torre
- Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31-34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, UK
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