There is a broad relationship between evolutionary history and major climatic oscillations nevertheless, a closer examination reveals a more complex pattern. We show that the evolution of modern humans has roots that extend well before MIS 6, and propose four overlapping stages, making this a much more prolonged process than has traditionally been described. We argue that while there is a paucity of well-dated sites that reduces the resolution of any interpretation, the available evidence indicates a major role for eastern Africa as an area of endemism, most probably related to the interaction of mosaic environments and refugia. This paper reviews the genetic, archaeological, and fossil evidence for the evolution of modern humans across MIS 6-2 in eastern Africa, and places this into the context of Middle Pleistocene human evolution, the development of the Middle Stone Age across the continent, and climatic change over the last two glacial cycles. more Eastern Africa (broadly Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania) has yielded the earliest fossils of modern humans, the earliest evidence for Mode 3 technologies (Middle Stone Age), and is one of the areas in which modern humans may well have been endemic. The scale of debris also indicates the significance of stone as a critical resource for hominins and so provides insights into a novel evolutionary ecology.Įastern Africa (broadly Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania) has yielded. The nature of the lithics and inferred age may suggest that hominins other than modern humans were capable of unintentionally modifying their environment. The lithic-strewn pavement created by this ancient stone tool manufacture possibly represents the earliest human environmental impact at a landscape scale and is an example of anthropogenic change. The type of stone tools-Acheulean and Middle Stone Age-indicates that extensive stone tool manufacture occurred over the last half million years or more. Surveys showed that parts of the Messak Settafet have as much as 75 lithics per square metre and that this fractured debris is a dominant element of the environment. The Messak Settafet, a sandstone massif in the Central Sahara (Libya), is littered with Pleistocene stone tools on an unprecedented scale and is, in effect, a man-made landscape. However, measures of the impact of hominin stone exploitation are rare and inherently difficult.
The use of stone tools, which dates back over 2.5 million years, and the subsequent evolution of a technologically-dependent lineage required the exploitation of very large quantities of rock. Here we report on an earlier anthropogenic environmental change. The use of fire and over-exploitation of large mammals has also been recognized as having an effect on the world’s ecology, going back perhaps 100,000 years or more. This has been particularly intense in the last millennium but has been noticeable since the development of food production and the associated higher population densities in the last 10,000 years. more Humans have had a major impact on the environment. This has been particularly intense in the last. Humans have had a major impact on the environment. these first steps provide a framework that will be used for quantitative shape analyses that aim to more firmly place these remains in the context of human evolution. Used in the creation of several anatomical reconstructions, based on separate reference crania. Finally, virtual surface projections were Subsequently, all fragments were separated by segmentation First, we virtually removed sediment and laboratory adhesives from μct scans of the fragments.
this manuscript presents the first steps taken to resolve this issue, namely a set of reconstructions of the specimen that would allow comparison with the fossil record. Most scholars have argued that Kabua 1 represents an anatomically modern Homo sapiens, although the fragmentary nature of the remains and lack of a chronometric date hinder robust phylogenetic and taxonomic assessments. thus, the primary aim of our research is to partly relieve this problem by virtually reconstructing and analyzing the hominin cranial remains of Kabua 1, found in Kenya in the 1950s. more our current knowledge of the emergence of anatomically modern humans, and the human lineage in general, is limited, in large part because of the lack of a well preserved and well dated fossil record from Pleistocene Africa. Our current knowledge of the emergence of anatomically modern humans, and the human lineage in ge.