Academic literature on the topic 'Anthropology. Hadar Site (Ethiopia)'

The book is the most in-depth account of the fossil skull anatomy and evolutionary significance of the 3.6-3.0 million year old early human species Australopithecus afarensis. Knowledge of this species is pivotal to understanding early human evolution, because 1) the sample of fossil remains of A. afarensis is among the most extensive for any early human species, and the majority of remains are of taxonomically inormative skulls and teeth; 2) the wealth of material makes A. afarensis an indispensable point of reference for the interpretation of other fossil discoveries; 3) the species occupies

Australopithecus afarensis is a fossil hominin species known from at least four East African Rift Valley sites ranging from northern Ethiopia in the north to northern Tanzania in the south and bridging the time period between approximately 3.6 and 3.0 million years ago (Ma). First identified in the late 1970s as the bipedal but craniodentally apelike rootstock from which later Australopithecus and Homo evolved (Johanson et al., 1978; Johanson and White, 1979), A. afarensis constituted the first substantial record of unequivocal human ancestors older than 3.0 million years (Myr). An array of more recently made discoveries have placed A. afarensis in a pivotal position in early hominin phylogeny, bracketed in time between, on the one hand, two temporally successive species, A. anamensis and Ardipithecus ramidus, that jointly extend the hominin record back to 4.4 Ma (M. Leakey et al., 1995, 1998; White et al., 1994, 1995), and, on the other hand, the earliest strong (stratigraphic) evidence for hominin lineage diversification, with the first known records of A. africanus (ca. 2.7 Ma) in southern Africa, and of A. aethiopicus (ca. 2.7 Ma) and A. garhi (2.5 Ma) in eastern Africa (Walker et al., 1986; Asfaw et al., 1999).2 The task of sorting out the relationships among all of these species hinges on the interpretation of A. afarensis itself, from its alpha taxonomy and phylogenetic role to its pattern of evolution over time. A prerequisite to achieving this goal is a more complete knowledge of the A. afarensis fossil record, narrowing gaps in our knowledge of anatomy and variation, as well as of distributions in space and time. On sample size alone, A. afarensis is the best-known hominin species in the eastern African fossil record. The vast majority of fossils in the A. afarensis hypodigm, some 360 specimens, or approximately 90% of the total, have been recovered at the Hadar site, from the 200+ meter sequence of silts, sands, and clays that comprise the Hadar Formation, which is exposed along the drainages of the Awash River in the Afar Depression of northern Ethiopia (Johanson et al., 1982a; Kimbel et al., 1994).

A geographic information system is an ideal tool for use in interdisciplinary studies because it provides automated means of linking and relating different spatial databases. In this paper we discuss GIS applications to ongoing archaeological and paleoecological studies at Olorgesailie, an early hominid archaeological locality in the rift valley of southern Kenya and one of the most noted Acheulian handaxe sites worldwide (Isaac 1977). The questions being asked in early hominid archaeology require thinking beyond individual artifacts and site excavations to broader spatial scales within welldefined time intervals (or chronostratigraphic units) (Blumenschine and Masao 1991; Potts 1991). The sedimentary exposures at Olorgesailie permit the smallest spatial scale of individual artifacts and fossils to be integrated with regional-scale studies. Since many of the GIS applications are still in initial form, the purpose here is largely to illustrate the conceptual framework by which GIS integrates the analysis of spatial data at varying geographic scales in the Olorgesailie basin. Covering over 4000 km in length, the African Rift System trends southward from the Afar Triangle in the Red Sea region to south of the Zambezi River in Zambia. The numerous continental rift basins that make up the rift system have a complex structural and volcanic history. For most of its length, the African Rift traverses Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania. The rift is divisible into eastern and western portions, which merge into a broad faulted region in northern Tanzania (Baker et al. 1972). Between the eastern and western rifts, occupying portions of Uganda, Tanzania, and northern Kenya, is an uplifted plateau 1000 to 1200 m in elevation. Uplifted, elongated domal structures located in Ethiopia and Kenya form the structural base from which the East African Rift System has developed. The rocks that make up this shield complex are Precambrian gneisses, quartzites, and schists. In addition to intrusions by dikes and plutons, these basement rocks have been altered by partial melting and metamorphism. Significant though episodic uplift of the Kenyan dome and its flanks during the late Cretaceous and middle and late Tertiary contributed to the development of a graben structure (Baker 1986; Baker et al. 1972).