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Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences

Volume 43, 2015

Environment and Climate of Early Human Evolution

Abstract

Evaluating the relationships between climate, the environment, and human traits is a key part of human origins research because changes in Earth's atmosphere, oceans, landscapes, and ecosystems over the past 10 Myr shaped the selection pressures experienced by early humans. In Africa, these relationships have been influenced by a combination of high-latitude ice distributions, sea surface temperatures, and low-latitude orbital forcing that resulted in large oscillations in vegetation and moisture availability that were modulated by local basin dynamics. The importance of both climate and tectonics in shaping African landscapes means that integrated views of the ecological, environmental, and tectonic histories of a region are necessary in order to understand the relationships between climate and human evolution.

Keyword(s): Africa, climate change, human origins, paleoenvironments
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2015-05-30
2025-04-22
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Environment and Climate of Early Human Evolution
Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 43, 405 (2015); https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-earth-060614-105310
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Supplementary Data

  • The purpose of this supplement is to provide references and data for the plots in the panels that comprise Figures 3, 4, and 5. The data are provided in Supplemental Tables 1, 2, and 3.

    Supplemental Table 1 (XLS). Published pollen and carbon isotope data from marine cores used in Figures 3, 4, and 5

    Supplemental Table 2 (XLSX). Published stable isotope data and bovid abundance data from continental archives plotted in Figures 3, 4, and 5

    Supplemental Table 3 (XLS). Published estimates for atmospheric pCO2 from proxy data sets plotted in Figures 4 and 5

    Unless noted, the ages listed in the tables are as they are reported in either the original publication or the referenced data compilation. Data older than 10 Myr are not included in this compilation even if they were part of the original dataset. Multiple analyses for a sample are reported as averages, as in the original datasets or the cited compilations. Blank cells indicate that data are either not available or applicable for a particular field. For the tabulation of reconstructed pCO2 estimates, the reader should consult the original publication and the referenced compilation to understand the context for the data; many of the estimates and associated ages have been recalculated since the initial publication of the data.

    Some of the data were compiled from the original publication whereas others were taken from existing compilations. References to the publications that are cited in the tables are included below. For all datasets, data are only compiled here if they are publically available elsewhere from sources with a doi. 

    Data that are plotted in Figures 3, 4, and 5 but not included in the Supplemental Tables are:

    1. Global δ18Obenthic values compiled by Zachos et al. (2001): see the following link for data, http://www.es.ucsc.edu/~silab/ZACPUBDATA/2001CompilationData.txt
    2. The dust record from ODP 721/722 reported in deMenocal (1995): see the following link for data, http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~peter/site/Data.html
    3. The modeled results for atmospheric pCO2 from van de Wal et al. (2011) as the dataset is very large and it is available via an open access publication: doi:10.5194/cp-7-1459-2011
    4. The dust record from Larrasoaña et al. (2003) and the δ13C record from Maslin et al. (2012). The tabulated form of the data from these publications were obtained via personal communication with the authors of the respective papers for the purpose of inclusion in the summary figures of this review

    I note that the compilation of atmospheric pCO2 estimates in Supplemental Table 3 is missing the data recently published by Martínez-Botí et al. (2015), which had not been published in time to be considered fully in this review.

    The data plotted in Figures 3, 4, and 5 and tabulated here are representative of environmental data that are relevant to studies of early human evolution, but there are many other environmental datasets that could be included.

    If you find errors in this compilation, please let the author know.

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  • Article Type: Review Article

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