Collaborative Research: Filling in a temporal gap in hominin evolution

合作研究：填补古人类进化的时间空白

• 批准号: 1460493
• 负责人: Kaye Reed
• 金额: $ 25.84万
• 依托单位: Arizona State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-02-15 至 2019-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1460493&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Filling; temporal; gap

The Ledi-Geraru Research Project (LRGP) promotes the science of human origins by exploring a region in the Afar of Ethiopia, which contains rare fossiliferous sediments ranging in time from 3.0-2.4 million years ago. The evidence for both behavioral and biological evolution in the hominin lineage is limited during this time period. However, these sediments contain some of the earliest archaeological sites in the world, as well as fossils of human ancestors. New archeological and paleontological data will be collected that provide a better understanding of hominin behavioral evolution, the extinction of Australopithecus afarensis, the origin of material culture in the form of stone tool technology, and the biogeography of ancient mammal species. The investigators will examine the various factors that are driving evolution, such as climate change, to understand the conditions under which biological and behavioral changes occurred in human evolutionary history. The project will engage both K-12 students and the public at large; the immediate field findings will be delivered in a real-time atmosphere through interactive blogs from the field in which each scientist interacts with students from U.S. classrooms. The project is also instrumental in training students from both the U.S. and Ethiopia in a STEM science. During this three-year project, the investigators will collect archaeological, paleontological, and paleoenvironmental data to address behavioral and biological evolution in the hominin lineage in the time period from 2.95-2.5 Ma. In the lower Awash valley of Ethiopia, the last appearance date of A. afarensis at ~2.95 Ma (Hadar), followed by the appearance of stone tools at ~2.58 Ma (Gona) and Homo cf. H. habilis (Hadar) at ~2.35 Ma, have been described as a drastic niche shift for the hominin lineage. This project is examining strata from a period heretofore undocumented in the lower Awash valley. Archaeological excavations are being expanded in locations where artifacts have been previously recovered. Past habitats in which hominins existed will be reconstructed with multiple methods including mammal community structure, utilizing mesowear and stable isotopes for mammalian diets, ecomorphology to retrodict mammal locomotor patterns, and analyses of botanical remains. Data recovered will be compared to hominin, faunal, and botanical information from localities near the LGRP that encompass time before and after this interval to develop a regional, representation of the paleoenvironment and species turnover across time and space. Subsequently, these data will be compared to sites beyond the lower Awash region to better understand East African evolutionary and biogeographical patterns.

Ledi-Geraru研究项目（LRGP）通过探索埃塞俄比亚远处的一个地区，促进了人类起源的科学，该地区包含3.0-240万年前的时间范围内的罕见的化石沉积物。在此期间，人类谱系中行为和生物学进化的证据都受到限制。但是，这些沉积物包含世界上一些最早的考古遗址以及人类祖先的化石。将收集新的考古学和古生物学数据，以更好地理解人类行为的进化，灭绝的灭绝，以石工具技术的形式出现物质文化的起源以及古代哺乳动物的生物地理学。研究人员将研究驱动进化的各种因素，例如气候变化，以了解人类进化史中生物学和行为变化的条件。该项目将吸引K-12学生和整个公众；直接的现场发现将在实时氛围中通过互动式博客提供，这些博客与每个科学家与美国教室的学生进行互动。该项目还有助于培训来自美国和埃塞俄比亚的STEM科学的学生。在这个为期三年的项目中，研究人员将收集考古，古生物学和古环境数据，以解决2.95-2.5 MA的人类谱系中的行为和生物学进化。在埃塞俄比亚的下部瓦什山谷中，A. farensis的最后一次出现日期约为2.95 Ma（Hadar），随后出现了〜2.58 Ma（Gona）和Homo CF的石材工具。 〜2.35 Ma的H. habilis（Hadar）被描述为人类谱系的急剧小众转移。该项目正在研究下瓦什山谷中迄今未记录的时期的地层。考古发掘正在以前已回收的工件的地点进行扩展。过去存在的人类栖息地将通过多种方法进行重建，包括哺乳动物群落结构，利用哺乳动物饮食中的介质和稳定的同位素，生态形态来回顾哺乳动物的机器人模式以及植物残留的分析。将回收的数据与来自LGRP附近地区的人类，动物和植物信息进行比较，这些信息涵盖了此间隔之前和之后的时间，以开发出跨时间和空间的古环境和物种转移的区域性代表。随后，将将这些数据与低瓦什地区以外的地点进行比较，以更好地了解东非进化和生物地理模式。