African Biogeography Climate Change And Human Evolution

Download or read book African Biogeography, Climate Change, and Human Evolution written by Timothy G. Bromage and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2000-01-27 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing an ecological and biogeographic perspective to recent fossil finds, this book provides a new synthesis of ideas on hominid evolution and will be a valuable resource for a variety of researchers.

Download or read book Understanding Climate's Influence on Human Evolution written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2010-04-17 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The hominin fossil record documents a history of critical evolutionary events that have ultimately shaped and defined what it means to be human, including the origins of bipedalism; the emergence of our genus Homo; the first use of stone tools; increases in brain size; and the emergence of Homo sapiens, tools, and culture. The Earth's geological record suggests that some evolutionary events were coincident with substantial changes in African and Eurasian climate, raising the possibility that critical junctures in human evolution and behavioral development may have been affected by the environmental characteristics of the areas where hominins evolved. Understanding Climate's Change on Human Evolution explores the opportunities of using scientific research to improve our understanding of how climate may have helped shape our species. Improved climate records for specific regions will be required before it is possible to evaluate how critical resources for hominins, especially water and vegetation, would have been distributed on the landscape during key intervals of hominin history. Existing records contain substantial temporal gaps. The book's initiatives are presented in two major research themes: first, determining the impacts of climate change and climate variability on human evolution and dispersal; and second, integrating climate modeling, environmental records, and biotic responses. Understanding Climate's Change on Human Evolution suggests a new scientific program for international climate and human evolution studies that involve an exploration initiative to locate new fossil sites and to broaden the geographic and temporal sampling of the fossil and archeological record; a comprehensive and integrative scientific drilling program in lakes, lake bed outcrops, and ocean basins surrounding the regions where hominins evolved and a major investment in climate modeling experiments for key time intervals and regions that are critical to understanding human evolution.

Download or read book African Biogeography, Climate Change & Human Evolution written by Timothy G. Bromage and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interpreting early human evolution in the context of the local ecology and adaptation to specific habitats, this interdisciplinary book systematically assesses the possible role of climate change in driving early human evolution.

Download or read book Africa from MIS 6-2 written by Sacha C. Jones and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-03-04 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together archaeological, paleoenvironmental, paleontological and genetic data, this book makes a first attempt to reconstruct African population histories from out species' evolution to the Holocene. Africa during Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 6 to 2 (~190-12,000 years ago) witnessed the biological development and behavioral florescence of our species. Modern human population dynamics, which involved multiple population expansions, dispersals, contractions and extinctions, played a central role in our species’ evolutionary trajectory. So far, the demographic processes – modern human population sizes, distributions and movements – that occurred within Africa during this critical period have been consistently under-addressed. The authors of this volume aim at (1) examining the impact of this glacial-interglacial- glacial cycle on human group sizes, movements and distributions throughout Africa; (2) investigating the macro- and micro-evolutionary processes underpinning our species’ anatomical and behavioral evolution; and (3) setting an agenda whereby Africa can benefit from, and eventually contribute to, the increasingly sophisticated theoretical and methodological palaeodemographic frameworks developed on other continents.

Download or read book African Paleoecology and Human Evolution written by Sally C. Reynolds and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-06-09 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humans evolved in the dynamic landscapes of Africa under conditions of pronounced climatic, geological and environmental change during the past 7 million years. This book brings together detailed records of the paleontological and archaeological sites in Africa that provide the basic evidence for understanding the environments in which we evolved. Chapters cover specific sites, with comprehensive accounts of their geology, paleontology, paleobotany, and their ecological significance for our evolution. Other chapters provide important regional syntheses of past ecological conditions. This book is unique in merging a broad geographic scope (all of Africa) and deep time framework (the past 7 million years) in discussing the geological context and paleontological records of our evolution and that of organisms that evolved alongside our ancestors. It will offer important insights to anyone interested in human evolution, including researchers and graduate students in paleontology, archaeology, anthropology and geology.

Download or read book Hominin Environments in the East African Pliocene written by René Bobe and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-09-08 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents the work of researchers at many sites spanning the East African Pliocene. The authors take a broad approach that seeks to compare paleoenvironmental and paleoecological patterns across localities and among various taxonomic groups. This volume aims to synthesize large amounts of faunal data, and to present the evolution of East African vertebrates in the context of environmental and climatic changes during the Pliocene.

Download or read book Bioclimatology and Biogeography of Africa written by Henry N. Houérou and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-12-10 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering an area of over 130 million km2 spanning the Mediterranean, equator and tropics, the African continent features a spectacular geographic diversity. Consequently, it is characterised by extremely variable climatic, edaphic and ecological conditions, associated with a wide range of natural vegetation and wildlife, as well as human population density, crops and livestock. In this book, Henry Le Houérou presents his bioclimatic and biogeographic classification of Africa. The extensive data provide the basis for comparisons between various African regions, and with regions on other continents such as Latin America or the Indian subcontinent. The results constitute a rational basis for national, regional and sub-regional rural development planning, and for agricultural research dealing with aspects such as plant and animal introductions, the extrapolation or interpolation of experimental or developmental findings, and ecosystems dynamics. Possible problems of applications are also examined.