Dramatic changes in African Climate may have been implicated in faunal evolution in Africa during the last 12 million years. The East African Rift Valley continues to reveal a remarkable archive of human evolution. Marine sediments offshore preserve continuous climate information which can help to explore the potential pressures driving evolutionary changes. Many parts of the evolutionary history and climate history of the region remain to be discovered making this an exciting arena for interdisciplinary research with fundamental implications for who we are and why we are here.
For example, here is a publication as a result of our plant wax evidence contributing to understanding the paleoenvironmental context of a recent discovery of a remarkably complete cranium “MRD” (with facial features) of the species Australopithecus anamensis by Yohannes Hailie-Selassie at Woranso-Mille, Ethiopia:
Saylor, B.Z., Gibert, L., Deino, A., Alene, M., Levin, N.E., Peaple, M.D.*, Feakins, S.J., Bourel, B., Barboni, D., Novello, A., Sylvestre, F., Mertzman, S.A., Haile-Selassie, Y. Age and context of new mid-Pliocene hominin cranium from Woranso-Mille, Ethiopia, Nature, doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1513-8. article
Our research seeks to explore climate change during the Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene using compound specific isotopic approaches. This research will yield fundamental insights into environmental transformations during this time interval. Ultimately this research has broader impacts for paleoanthropology, in order to explore the possible climatic pressures on evolution at key branch points in evolution of the hominins and emergence of important ‘human’ traits such as bipedalism.
Feakins, S.J., Levin, N.E., Liddy, H.M.*, Sieracki, A., Eglinton, T.I., Bonnefille, R., 2013. Northeast African vegetation change over 12 million years, Geology, 41, 295-298, doi:10.1130/G33845.1 open access article data
- see press page for extensive coverage, as this study found grasslands long before bipedalism, thus dismissing the savanna hypothesis.
- also important to note that this is the earliest emergence of C4 grasslands globally soon after 10 Ma.
Feakins, S.J., 2013. Pollen-corrected leaf wax D/H reconstructions of northeast African hydrological changes during the late Miocene, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 374, 62-71. article
Feakins, S.J., Eglinton, T.I. and deMenocal, P.B., 2007. A comparison of biomarker records of northeast African vegetation from lacustrine and marine sediments ca. 3.40 Ma, Organic Geochemistry, doi: 10.1016/j.orggeochem.2007.06.008. article
Feakins, S.J., Brown, F.H., and deMenocal, P.B., 2007.Plio-Pleistocene Microtephra in DSDP Site 231, Gulf of Aden, Journal of African Earth Sciences, doi: 10.1016/j.jafrearsci.2007.05.004. article data
Feakins, S.J., deMenocal, P,B. Eglinton, T.I, 2005. Biomarker Records of Late Neogene changes in northeast African Vegetation, Geology, 33, 977-980. article data see 2013 update
The question of environmental change driving evolution is highlighted as one of the themes motivating the next decade of ocean drilling. The record of vegetation change from plant leaf waxes (Feakins et al., 2005, Geology) is featured on p34 of the IODP Science Plan for 2013-2023.
I participated in a National Research Council Workshop on Climate Change and Human Evolution, at the National Academies in Irvine, CA. A publication arising from that meeting and the work of the committee is available here.