Paper No. 184-6
Presentation Time: 9:00 AM-6:30 PM
ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY AND HUMAN EVOLUTION IN EASTERN AFRICA: THE 550,000-YEAR CLIMATE RECORD FROM THE CHEW BAHIR BASIN, AN HSPDP KEY SITE IN SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA
FOERSTER, Verena1, ASRAT, Asfawossen2, COHEN, Andrew S.3, DEAN, Jonathan R.4, DEINO, Alan L.5, DEOCAMPO, Daniel M.6, DUESING, Walter7, GUENTER, Christina7, JUNGINGER, Annett8, LAMB, Henry F.9, LANE, Christine S.10, LENG, Melanie11, NOREN, Anders12, ROBERTS, Helen M.13, SCHAEBITZ, Frank1 and TRAUTH, Martin H.14, (1)University of Cologne, Institute of Geography Education, Gronewaldstrasse 2, Cologne, 50931, Germany, (2)Addis Ababa University, School of Earth Sciences, Addis Ababa, 1176, Ethiopia, (3)Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, (4)University of Hull, School of Environmental Sciences, Hull, United Kingdom, (5)Berkeley Geochronology Center, 2455 Ridge Road, Berkeley, CA 94709, (6)Geosciences, Georgia State University, 24 Peachtree Center Avenue Northeast, Atlanta, GA 30303, (7)Institute of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany, (8)Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Department of Earth Sciences, Tuebingen, Germany, (9)Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, SY23 3DB, United Kingdom, (10)Research Laboratory for Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3QY, United Kingdom, (11)NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham, NG12 5GG, United Kingdom, (12)CSDCO / LacCore, University of Minnesota, 116 Church St SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, (13)Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Llandinam Building, Penglais Campus, Aberystwyth, SY23 3DB, United Kingdom, (14)University of Potsdam, Institute of Earth and Environmental Science, Potsdam, Germany
As a contribution towards an enhanced understanding of human-climate interactions, the Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project (HSPDP) has successfully cored six dominantly lacustrine archives of climate change during the last 3.3 Ma in eastern Africa. All six sites in Ethiopia and Kenya are adjacent to key paleoanthropological research areas encompassing diverse milestones in human evolution, dispersal episodes, and technological innovation. The 280 m-long Chew Bahir sediment records, recovered from a deep tectonically-bound basin in the southern Ethiopian rift in late 2014, cover the past 550 ka of environmental history, a time period that includes the transition to the Middle Stone Age, the emergence of
Homo sapiensin eastern Africa and the dispersal of
anatomically modern humans.Here we present first results of the high-resolution Chew Bahir geochemical, mineralogical and sedimentological data sets for the last 550 ka. These comprise grain-size analysis, MSCL, XRF geochemistry, XRD and stable isotope data that indicate dramatic wet-dry oscillations on different time scales during this time interval. Correlating our data with other established records from e.g. Northern Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean or the Indian Ocean,highlights which role climate fluctuations could have played in opening and closing possible corridors for human migration waves.
Together with a high quality geochronology, our growing understanding of site-specific proxy formation and the establishment of climate proxies for Chew Bahir will provide a robust environmental history on decadal to orbital timescales. Based on these results we will be able to test and discuss climate related hypotheses on human evolution and dispersal.
![[Visit Client Website]](/img/gsa/banner.jpg)