Collaborative Research: Paleoclimatic and Palenvironmental Characterization of Early Pleistocene Sites

Oklahoma State University Center For Health Sciences, Tulsa OK

Investigators

Abstract

This research will investigate the impact of climate and environmental change on the migration of early human ancestors out of Africa and their adaptation to novel environments 1.8 million years ago. Previous scholarship on climate-human relationship focused on unique morphological and behavioral adaptations of early humans to hot, arid and open savanna habitats, and causally linked the dispersal of early humans with the development of savanna grasslands in Eurasia. However, evidence for an expansion of a savanna corridor at broad millennial temporal scales and/or at a global continental spatial scale is ambiguous and necessitates consideration that disparate climatic processes operating on narrower temporal scales and local spatial scales may have played a critical role in this cardinal and foundational event. Novel, state-of-the-art, complementary and interdisciplinary methods derived from archaeology and geosciences are well-placed to break new ground by focusing on seasonality and other high-resolution spatial and temporal climatic and environmental patterns as some of the driving forces for dispersal of early Homo. This collaboration of archaeologists, geochemists, paleontologists, and geologists from the United States, Israel, Republic of Georgia, and Australia will explore the unfamiliar pattern of seasonality, climate and environment which early humans faced in the Levant. Knowledge of the type, extent and degree of past biological human adaptation holds promise for illuminating issues on the distributions and capacities of modern humans in varying climatic regimes. Anthropogenic climate change is one of the most perilous processes facing humanity in the 21st century and understanding human biological limits is paramount in addressing these global concerns. The research will provide a platform for fostering professional and public discourse on the interactions throughout time among climate, environment, and human responses, enhancing science education across multiple academic levels, and supporting the recruitment of undergraduate students from underrepresented groups through mentoring aimed to create leaders in scholarship, research and public life. The research team will derive new data on the local climate and environment of two archaeological sites in Israel and the Republic of Georgia dating from 2 - 1.2 million years ago, which are the some of the earliest sites of humans out of Africa. Combining new dating methods, archaeological excavations, fossil analyses across the spectra of morphology, histology and chemistry will permit rigorous evaluation of the links between climate, environment and hominin population dynamics. Furthermore, the team will generate new comparative methods for the study of paleoclimatology and paleoecology, which will be used for developing a comprehensive database that will be made publicly available. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.