Landforms, Climate, Ecogeographic Mosaics, and the Potential for Hominid Diversity in Pliocene Africa

Abstract

Abstract We assume that hominid biodiversity in Pliocene Africa was somehow related to the continent’s mosaic of evolving landscapes, vegetation, and changing climate. But how? As yet, we do not know the answer. Our knowledge of the continent’s physical geography and biotic environments during the Pliocene and earliest Pleistocene is limited. The development of evolutionary theory, as it concerns both biodiversity and adaptation, is still weak. What we can be glad of is a fairly well-developed descriptive understanding of landforms, climate, and vegetation as they exist today. Theoretical considerations and alternative interpretations of the paleorecord suggest that the environments of the Pliocene were richer than usually assumed, certainly richer than today. We explore the potential of Pliocene Africa to support an array of hominids within a broad theme of environmental dynamics and changing scales of geographic heterogeneity across the continent. In sum, our chapter attempts to sketch the possibilities of hominid biogeographic potential, from deathlands to potential heartlands of relatively high species richness, interrelated through mosaics of contrasting adjacent environments at the regional and subregional scales. First we introduce landforms, climate, and African phytogeography. Then we explore some ecogeographic possibilities for continentwide biodiversity.

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