High-resolution vegetation and climate change associated with Pliocene Australopithecus afarensis

Raymonde Bonnefille · Richard Potts · Françoise Chalié · Dominique Jolly · Odile Peyron

230 citations0/0 files storedProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology Geology and Paleoclimatology Research Evolution and Paleontology Studies

Abstract

Plio-Pleistocene global climate change is believed to have had an important influence on local habitats and early human evolution in Africa. Responses of hominin lineages to climate change have been difficult to test, however, because this procedure requires well documented evidence for connections between global climate and hominin environment. Through high-resolution pollen data from Hadar, Ethiopia, we show that the hominin Australopithecus afarensis accommodated to substantial environmental variability between 3.4 and 2.9 million years ago. A large biome shift, up to 5 degrees C cooling, and a 200- to 300-mm/yr rainfall increase occurred just before 3.3 million years ago, which is consistent with a global marine delta(18)O isotopic shift.

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References

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2013Hominin evolution in settings of strong environmental variability 2014East African climate pulses and early human evolution 2009“Lucy” redux: A review of research on Australopithecus afarensis 2006Climate Change and Human Evolution 2007Shifting adaptive landscapes: Progress and challenges in reconstructing early hominid environments

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