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Rowan J, Du A, Lundgren EJ, Faith JT, Beaudrot L, Campisano CJ, Joordens JC, Lazagabaster IA, Locke EM, Smail IE, Reed KE, Kamilar JM. Long-term biotic homogenization in the East African Rift System over the last 6 million years of hominin evolution. Nat Ecol Evol 2024; 8:1751-1759. [PMID: 39009848 DOI: 10.1038/s41559-024-02462-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/19/2023] [Accepted: 06/05/2024] [Indexed: 07/17/2024]
Abstract
Eastern Africa preserves the most complete record of human evolution anywhere in the world but we have little knowledge of how long-term biogeographic dynamics in the region influenced hominin diversity and distributions. Here, we use spatial beta diversity analyses of mammal fossil records from the East African Rift System to reveal long-term biotic homogenization (increasing compositional similarity of faunas) over the last 6 Myr. Late Miocene and Pliocene faunas (~6-3 million years ago (Ma)) were largely composed of endemic species, with the shift towards biotic homogenization after ~3 Ma being driven by the loss of endemic species across functional groups and a growing number of shared grazing species. This major biogeographic transition closely tracks the regional expansion of grass-dominated ecosystems. Although grazers exhibit low beta diversity in open environments of the Early Pleistocene, the high beta diversity of Mio-Pliocene browsers and frugivores occurred in the context of extensive woody vegetation. We identify other key aspects of the Late Cenozoic biogeographic development of eastern Africa, their likely drivers and place the hominin fossil record in this context. Because hominins were undoubtedly influenced by many of the same factors as other eastern African mammals, this provides a new perspective on the links between environmental and human evolutionary histories.
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Affiliation(s)
- John Rowan
- Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
| | - Andrew Du
- Department of Anthropology and Geography, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA
| | - Erick J Lundgren
- Centre for Ecological Dynamics in a Novel Biosphere (ECONOVO), Department of Biology, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
| | - J Tyler Faith
- Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
- Natural History Museum of Utah, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
- Origins Centre, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
| | - Lydia Beaudrot
- Department of Biosciences, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA
- Program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA
- Department of Integrative Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
| | - Christopher J Campisano
- Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
- School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
| | - Josephine C Joordens
- Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, the Netherlands
- Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands
- Faculty of Science, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
- Faculty of Science and Engineering, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands
| | - Ignacio A Lazagabaster
- CENIEH (National Research Center on Human Evolution), Burgos, Spain
- Department of Evolution, Ecology & Behaviour, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
| | - Ellis M Locke
- Department of Anatomy, Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine, Idaho, ID, USA
| | - Irene E Smail
- Department of Biomedical Sciences, West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine, Lewisburg, WV, USA
| | - Kaye E Reed
- Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
- School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
| | - Jason M Kamilar
- Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA
- Graduate Program in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA
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2
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Villaseñor A, Uno KT, Kinyanjui RN, Behrensmeyer AK, Bobe R, Advokaat EL, Bamford M, Carvalho SC, Hammond AS, Palcu DV, Sier MJ, Ward CV, Braun DR. Pliocene hominins from East Turkana were associated with mesic environments in a semiarid basin. J Hum Evol 2023; 180:103385. [PMID: 37229946 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2023.103385] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/03/2022] [Revised: 04/15/2023] [Accepted: 04/19/2023] [Indexed: 05/27/2023]
Abstract
During the middle Pliocene (∼3.8-3.2 Ma), both Australopithecus afarensis and Kenyanthropus platyops are known from the Turkana Basin, but between 3.60 and 3.44 Ma, most hominin fossils are found on the west side of Lake Turkana. Here, we describe a new hominin locality (ET03-166/168, Area 129) from the east side of the lake, in the Lokochot Member of the Koobi Fora Formation (3.60-3.44 Ma). To reconstruct the paleoecology of the locality and its surroundings, we combine information from sedimentology, the relative abundance of associated mammalian fauna, phytoliths, and stable isotopes from plant wax biomarkers, pedogenic carbonates, and fossil tooth enamel. The combined evidence provides a detailed view of the local paleoenvironment occupied by these Pliocene hominins, where a biodiverse community of primates, including hominins, and other mammals inhabited humid, grassy woodlands in a fluvial floodplain setting. Between <3.596 and 3.44 Ma, increases in woody vegetation were, at times, associated with increases in arid-adapted grasses. This suggests that Pliocene vegetation included woody species that were resilient to periods of prolonged aridity, resembling vegetation structure in the Turkana Basin today, where arid-adapted woody plants are a significant component of the ecosystem. Pedogenic carbonates indicate more woody vegetation than other vegetation proxies, possibly due to differences in temporospatial scale and ecological biases in preservation that should be accounted for in future studies. These new hominin fossils and associated multiproxy paleoenvironmental indicators from a single locale through time suggest that early hominin species occupied a wide range of habitats, possibly including wetlands within semiarid landscapes. Local-scale paleoecological evidence from East Turkana supports regional evidence that middle Pliocene eastern Africa may have experienced large-scale, climate-driven periods of aridity. This information extends our understanding of hominin environments beyond the limits of simple wooded, grassy, or mosaic environmental descriptions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amelia Villaseñor
- Department of Anthropology, The University of Arkansas, 330 Old Main, Fayetteville, AR, 72701, USA.
| | - Kevin T Uno
- Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Division of Biology and Paleo Environment, Palisades, NY, 10964, USA
| | - Rahab N Kinyanjui
- Department of Earth Sciences, National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, 40658-00100, Kenya; Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, 07745, Jena, Germany; Human Origins Program, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, MRC 121, Washington, DC, 20013, USA
| | - Anna K Behrensmeyer
- Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, MRC 121, Washington, DC, 20013, USA
| | - René Bobe
- Primate Models for Behavioural Evolution Lab, Institute of Human Sciences, University of Oxford, 64 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PN, UK; Gorongosa National Park, Sofala, Mozambique
| | - Eldert L Advokaat
- Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, Princetonlaan 8A, 3584 CB Utrecht, the Netherlands
| | - Marion Bamford
- Evolutionary Studies Institute and School of Geosciences, University of the Witwatersrand, P Bag 3, WITS, 2050, South Africa
| | - Susana C Carvalho
- Primate Models for Behavioural Evolution Lab, Institute of Human Sciences, University of Oxford, 64 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PN, UK; Gorongosa National Park, Sofala, Mozambique; Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeology and Evolution of Human Behaviour (ICArEHB), Universidade do Algarve, 8005-139, Faro, Portugal
| | - Ashley S Hammond
- Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), New York, NY, 10024, USA; New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology at AMNH, New York, NY, 10024, USA
| | - Dan V Palcu
- Oceanographic Institute of the University of São Paulo, Brazil; Paleomagnetic Laboratory 'Fort Hoofddijk', Utrecht University, Budapestlaan 17, 3584 CD, Utrecht, the Netherlands
| | - Mark J Sier
- Centro Nacional de Investigación Sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), Paseo Sierra de Atapuerca 3, 09002, Burgos, Spain; Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, OX1 3AN, Oxford, UK; Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, Princetonlaan 8A, 3584 CB Utrecht, the Netherlands
| | - Carol V Ward
- Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA
| | - David R Braun
- Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, Anthropology Department, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA
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Negash EW, Barr WA. Relative abundance of grazing and browsing herbivores is not a direct reflection of vegetation structure: Implications for hominin paleoenvironmental reconstruction. J Hum Evol 2023; 177:103328. [PMID: 36857987 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2023.103328] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/17/2022] [Revised: 01/23/2023] [Accepted: 01/23/2023] [Indexed: 03/03/2023]
Abstract
The diet of fossil herbivores inferred from enamel stable carbon isotopes is often used to make paleoenvironmental reconstructions. While many studies have focused on using environmental indicator taxa to make paleoenvironmental reconstructions, community-based approaches are considered to provide a more complete picture of paleolandscapes. These studies assume that the diet and relative abundance of herbivores are related to the areal extent of different vegetation types on the landscape. Here, we quantitatively test this assumption in 16 modern ecosystems in eastern and southern Africa with a wide range of woody vegetation cover. We conducted a landscape-level spatial analysis of vegetation patterns using a published land cover data set and computed landscape metrics. We compiled data on relative abundance and diet of herbivores inferred from carbon isotope studies for all large herbivores in these ecosystems. We found that despite differences in the total areal extent of different vegetation types, numerous sizable patches of each vegetation type are available in most ecosystems. However, despite variation across the ecosystems examined, grazers are typically the most abundant herbivores even in sites that have a higher proportion of forest and shrub cover. This indicates that the diet and relative abundance of herbivores is not a simple reflection of the total areal extent of vegetation types available on the landscape. The higher proportion of grazers observed in these ecosystems is a result of multiple factors including habitat heterogeneity, differences in biomass turnover rate between grasses and woody vegetation, resource partitioning, and the advantages of group living in open environments. Comparison of diet and relative abundance of herbivores in modern ecosystems to fossil herbivore assemblages shows that very different vegetation regimes can support similar herbivore assemblages. This study has significant implications for paleolandscape reconstructions and cautions against a simplistic wooded vs. grassland paleoenvironmental interpretations based on fossil herbivore assemblages.
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Affiliation(s)
- Enquye W Negash
- Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, George Washington University, 800 22nd Street, Northwest, Washington D.C. 20052, USA.
| | - W Andrew Barr
- Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, George Washington University, 800 22nd Street, Northwest, Washington D.C. 20052, USA
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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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5
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Barr WA, Pobiner B, Rowan J, Du A, Faith JT. No sustained increase in zooarchaeological evidence for carnivory after the appearance of Homo erectus. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2022; 119:e2115540119. [PMID: 35074877 PMCID: PMC8812535 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2115540119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/23/2021] [Accepted: 12/15/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
The appearance of Homo erectus shortly after 2.0 Ma is widely considered a turning point in human dietary evolution, with increased consumption of animal tissues driving the evolution of larger brain and body size and a reorganization of the gut. An increase in the size and number of zooarchaeological assemblages after the appearance of H. erectus is often offered as a central piece of archaeological evidence for increased carnivory in this species, but this characterization has yet to be subject to detailed scrutiny. Any widespread dietary shift leading to the acquisition of key traits in H. erectus should be persistent in the zooarchaeological record through time and can only be convincingly demonstrated by a broad-scale analysis that transcends individual sites or localities. Here, we present a quantitative synthesis of the zooarchaeological record of eastern Africa from 2.6 to 1.2 Ma. We show that several proxies for the prevalence of hominin carnivory are all strongly related to how well the fossil record has been sampled, which constrains the zooarchaeological visibility of hominin carnivory. When correcting for sampling effort, there is no sustained increase in the amount of evidence for hominin carnivory between 2.6 and 1.2 Ma. Our observations undercut evolutionary narratives linking anatomical and behavioral traits to increased meat consumption in H. erectus, suggesting that other factors are likely responsible for the appearance of its human-like traits.
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Affiliation(s)
- W Andrew Barr
- Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, Department of Anthropology, The George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052;
| | - Briana Pobiner
- Human Origins Program, Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560
| | - John Rowan
- Department of Anthropology, University at Albany, Albany, NY 12222
| | - Andrew Du
- Department of Anthropology and Geography, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523
| | - J Tyler Faith
- Natural History Museum of Utah, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84108
- Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112
- Origins Centre, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa
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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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