Vertebrate faunas from the Awash Group, Middle Awash Valley, Afar, Ethiopia

Kalb, Jon E.; Jolly, Clifford J.; Tebedge, Sleshi; Mebrate, Assefa; Smart, Charles C.; Oswald, Elizabeth B.; Whitehead, Paul F.; Wood, Craig B.; Adefris, Tsrha; Rawn-Schatzinger, Viola

doi:10.1080/02724634.1982.10011932

Cited by 51 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 36 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Recent paleoanthropological research in the Middle Awash-Hadar region of the southern Afar Rift has yielded an unparalleled record of early hominid biology and technology (Johanson, et al, 1978;Kalb et al, 1982, Kalb, 1993Clark et al,1984;White et al, 1993;Clark et al, 1994). The Hadar area is one of the richest vertebrate fossil sites in the East African Rift System.…”

Section: Southern Afar Rift Basinmentioning

confidence: 99%

Volcanism, tectonism, sedimentation, and the paleoanthropological record in the Ethiopian Rift system

WoldeGabriel¹,

Heiken²,

White³

et al. 2000

Volcanic Hazards and Disasters in Human Antiquity

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Ethiopian Rift System consists of basins that are in different stages of evolution. Some of the rift-related basins in southwestern Ethiopia are half-grabens that have not evolved to symmetrical rifts since the initiation of rifting here in the middle Miocene. These basins contain fossiliferous Pliocene-Pleistocene volcaniclastic sediments and volcanic rocks and have been occupied by early hominid populations. The Afar and the Main Ethiopian Rifts are symmetrical, with both margins fully developed. Several paleoanthropological localities, ranging in age from the Quaternary to the Pliocene, were discovered within these rift basins. The discovery of Australopithecus afarensis (the "Lucy" species) at Hadar and Ardipithecus ramidus and Australopithecus garhi in the Middle Awash makes the region the most prolific early hominid area in the world. Many of the known Pliocene-Pleistocene paleoanthropological localities that have given us information about our ancestors are concentrated in the East African Rift System. This is not a coincidence, because the volcanic and tectonic activities that were responsible for the formation of the rift basins and coeval sedimentation created ideal environments for the proliferation of life and the preservation of faunal and floral remains. Volcanic and tectonic activities created plateaus and mountains; most of the sediments in the basins were derived from these topographic highs located within and outside the rift valleys. Volcaniclastic sediments and volcanic ash were responsible for the quick burial and preservation of fossils during diagenesis. Diagenetic processes involving silicification, calcification, zeolitization, feldspathization, clay formation, and pedogenesis all played roles in fossil preservation in the volcaniclastic sediments. Volcanic rocks interbedded with the fossiliferous sediments also provide temporal information about geologic processes, faunal evolution, paleoenvironment, and early hominid behavior and lithic technology.

show abstract

Section: Southern Afar Rift Basinmentioning

confidence: 99%

Volcanism, tectonism, sedimentation, and the paleoanthropological record in the Ethiopian Rift system

WoldeGabriel¹,

Heiken²,

White³

et al. 2000

Volcanic Hazards and Disasters in Human Antiquity

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Although the Afar Depression of Ethiopia has provided a rich Pliocene record of fossil hominins and faunas ( e.g ., Kimbel, Johanson & Rak, 1994 ; Reed, 2008 ; White et al, 2006 , 2009 ), younger fossiliferous assemblages are poorly known from this region. Faunas of Early Pleistocene age have been reported from Gona ( Everett, 2010 ; Semaw et al, 2020 ) and the Middle Awash ( Kalb et al, 1982 ; de Heinzelin et al, 1999 ), but no comprehensive account of these assemblages has yet been published. Geraads et al (2021) recently provided a summary of the Mille-Logya fossil mammals, including the Early Pleistocene (~2.5–2.4 Ma) Uraitele exposures, but some taxa remain undescribed ( e.g ., Cercopithecidae).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early Pleistocene large mammals from Maka’amitalu, Hadar, lower Awash Valley, Ethiopia

Rowan

Lazagabaster

Campisano

et al. 2022

PeerJ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Early Pleistocene was a critical time period in the evolution of eastern African mammal faunas, but fossil assemblages sampling this interval are poorly known from Ethiopia’s Afar Depression. Field work by the Hadar Research Project in the Busidima Formation exposures (~2.7–0.8 Ma) of Hadar in the lower Awash Valley, resulted in the recovery of an early Homo maxilla (A.L. 666-1) with associated stone tools and fauna from the Maka’amitalu basin in the 1990s. These assemblages are dated to ~2.35 Ma by the Bouroukie Tuff 3 (BKT-3). Continued work by the Hadar Research Project over the last two decades has greatly expanded the faunal collection. Here, we provide a comprehensive account of the Maka’amitalu large mammals (Artiodactyla, Carnivora, Perissodactyla, Primates, and Proboscidea) and discuss their paleoecological and biochronological significance. The size of the Maka’amitalu assemblage is small compared to those from the Hadar Formation (3.45–2.95 Ma) and Ledi-Geraru (2.8–2.6 Ma) but includes at least 20 taxa. Bovids, suids, and Theropithecus are common in terms of both species richness and abundance, whereas carnivorans, equids, and megaherbivores are rare. While the taxonomic composition of the Maka’amitalu fauna indicates significant species turnover from the Hadar Formation and Ledi-Geraru deposits, turnover seems to have occurred at a constant rate through time as taxonomic dissimilarity between adjacent fossil assemblages is strongly predicted by their age difference. A similar pattern characterizes functional ecological turnover, with only subtle changes in dietary proportions, body size proportions, and bovid abundances across the composite lower Awash sequence. Biochronological comparisons with other sites in eastern Africa suggest that the taxa recovered from the Maka’amitalu are broadly consistent with the reported age of the BKT-3 tuff. Considering the age of BKT-3 and biochronology, a range of 2.4–1.9 Ma is most likely for the faunal assemblage.

show abstract

A proper study for mankind: Analogies from the Papionin monkeys and their implications for human evolution

Jolly

2001

Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

Self Cite

270

225

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper's theme is that analogies drawn from the cercopithecine tribe Papionini, especially the African subtribe Papionina (baboons, mangabeys, and mandrills), can be a valuable source of insights about the evolution of the human tribe, Hominini, to complement homologies found in extant humans and/or African apes. Analogies, involving a "likeness of relations" of the form "A is to B, as X is to Y," can be usefully derived from nonhomologous (homoplastic) resemblances in morphology, behavior, ecology, or population structure. Pragmatically, the papionins are a fruitful source of analogies for hominins because they are phylogenetically close enough to share many basic attributes by homology, yet far enough that homoplastic modifications of these features are easily recognized as such. In "The Seedeaters," an analogy between Theropithecus among baboons and Australopithecus africanus among hominines was the source of a widely discussed (and often misrepresented) dietbased scenario of hominin origins that explained previously unassociated hominin apomorphies, interpreted basal hominins as nonhuman rather than prehuman primates, and accommodated a basal hominin adaptive radiation of at least two lines.Current usage recognizes an even more extensive evolutionary radiation among the basal hominins, originating no earlier than about 7 ma, with multiple lineages documented or inferred by 2.5 ma. Although multilineage clades (especially the Paranthropus clade) within this complex are widely recognized, and emerge from sophisticated, parsimony-based analyses, it is suspected that in many cases, developmental or functional homoplasies are overwhelming the phylogenetic signal in the data. The papionin analogy (specifically the splitting of the traditional, morphology-based genera Cercocebus and Papio mandated by molecular evidence) illustrates the power of these factors to produce erroneous cladograms. Moreover, the rapid deployment of basal hominins across varied African habitats was an ideal scenario for producing morphologically undetectable homoplasy. There seems to be no foolproof way to distinguish, a priori, homologous from homoplastic resemblances in morphology, but one pragmatic strategy is to severely censor the datset, retaining only resemblances or differences (often apparently trivial ones) that cannot be reasonably explained on the basis of functional resemblance or difference, respectively. This strategy may eliminate most morpological data, and leave many fossil taxa incertae sedis, but this is preferable to unwarranted phylogenetic confidence.

show abstract

Vertebrate faunas from the Awash Group, Middle Awash Valley, Afar, Ethiopia

Cited by 51 publications

References 36 publications

Volcanism, tectonism, sedimentation, and the paleoanthropological record in the Ethiopian Rift system

Volcanism, tectonism, sedimentation, and the paleoanthropological record in the Ethiopian Rift system

Early Pleistocene large mammals from Maka’amitalu, Hadar, lower Awash Valley, Ethiopia

A proper study for mankind: Analogies from the Papionin monkeys and their implications for human evolution

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About