Browsing by Author "Ferraro, Joseph V"

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    Oldest evidence of toolmaking hominins in a grassland-dominated ecosystem
    (Public Library of Science, 2009) Plummer, Thomas W; Ditchfield, Peter W; Bishop, Laura C; Kingston, John D; Ferraro, Joseph V; Braun, David R; Hertel, Fritz; Potts, Richard
    BACKGROUND: Major biological and cultural innovations in late Pliocene hominin evolution are frequently linked to the spread or fluctuating presence of C 4 grass in African ecosystems. Whereas the deep sea record of global climatic change provides indirect evidence for an increase in C 4 vegetation with a shift towards a cooler, drier and more variable global climatic regime beginning approximately 3 million years ago (Ma), evidence for grassland-dominated ecosystems in continental Africa and hominin activities within such ecosystems have been lacking. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We report stable isotopic analyses of pedogenic carbonates and ungulate enamel, as well as faunal data from ∼2.0 Ma archeological occurrences at Kanjera South, Kenya. These document repeated hominin activities within a grassland-dominated ecosystem. Conclusions/Significance These data demonstrate what hitherto had been speculated based on indirect evidence: that grassland-dominated ecosystems did in fact exist during the Plio-Pleistocene, and that early Homo was active in open settings. Comparison with other Oldowan occurrences indicates that by 2.0 Ma hominins, almost certainly of the genus Homo , used a broad spectrum of habitats in East Africa, from open grassland to riparian forest. This strongly contrasts with the habitat usage of Australopithecus , and may signal an important shift in hominin landscape usage.