IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v476y2011i7358d10.1038_nature10306.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Woody cover and hominin environments in the past 6 million years

Author

Listed:
  • Thure E. Cerling

    (University of Utah)

  • Jonathan G. Wynn

    (University of South Florida)

  • Samuel A. Andanje

    (Kenya Wildlife Service, PO Box 40241-00100 Nairobi, Kenya)

  • Michael I. Bird

    (James Cook University)

  • David Kimutai Korir

    (Kenya Wildlife Service, PO Box 40241-00100 Nairobi, Kenya)

  • Naomi E. Levin

    (Johns Hopkins University)

  • William Mace

    (University of Utah)

  • Anthony N. Macharia

    (University of Utah)

  • Jay Quade

    (University of Arizona)

  • Christopher H. Remien

    (University of Utah)

Abstract

The role of African savannahs in the evolution of early hominins has been debated for nearly a century. Resolution of this issue has been hindered by difficulty in quantifying the fraction of woody cover in the fossil record. Here we show that the fraction of woody cover in tropical ecosystems can be quantified using stable carbon isotopes in soils. Furthermore, we use fossil soils from hominin sites in the Awash and Omo-Turkana basins in eastern Africa to reconstruct the fraction of woody cover since the Late Miocene epoch (about 7 million years ago). 13C/12C ratio data from 1,300 palaeosols at or adjacent to hominin sites dating to at least 6 million years ago show that woody cover was predominantly less than ∼40% at most sites. These data point to the prevalence of open environments at the majority of hominin fossil sites in eastern Africa over the past 6 million years.

Suggested Citation

  • Thure E. Cerling & Jonathan G. Wynn & Samuel A. Andanje & Michael I. Bird & David Kimutai Korir & Naomi E. Levin & William Mace & Anthony N. Macharia & Jay Quade & Christopher H. Remien, 2011. "Woody cover and hominin environments in the past 6 million years," Nature, Nature, vol. 476(7358), pages 51-56, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:476:y:2011:i:7358:d:10.1038_nature10306
    DOI: 10.1038/nature10306
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature10306
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature10306?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gallagher, Andrew, 2013. "Stature, body mass, and brain size: A two-million-year odyssey," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 551-562.
    2. Kelley A. Crews & Kenneth R. Young, 2013. "Forefronting the Socio-Ecological in Savanna Landscapes through Their Spatial and Temporal Contingencies," Land, MDPI, vol. 2(3), pages 1-20, September.
    3. Kenneth R. Young, 2023. "Reflections on the Dynamics of Savanna Landscapes," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-12, September.
    4. Marcelo Sthel & José Glauco Tostes & Juliana Tavares, 2013. "Sustainable Complex Triangular Cells for the Evaluation of CO 2 Emissions by Individuals instead of Nations in a Scenario for 2030," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(5), pages 1-16, May.
    5. Daniel A. Lauer & A. Michelle Lawing & Rachel A. Short & Fredrick K. Manthi & Johannes Müller & Jason J. Head & Jenny L. McGuire, 2023. "Disruption of trait-environment relationships in African megafauna occurred in the middle Pleistocene," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-15, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:476:y:2011:i:7358:d:10.1038_nature10306. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.