Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Profile of Professor Tobias
- List of participants
- Foreword
- Address
- Keynote address
- Searching for common ground in palaeoanthropology, archaeology and genetics
- The history of a special relationship: prehistoric terminology and lithic technology between the French and South African research traditions
- Essential attributes of any technologically competent animal
- Significant tools and signifying monkeys: the question of body techniques and elementary actions on matter among apes and early hominids
- Tools and brains: which came first?
- Environmental changes and hominid evolution: what the vegetation tells us
- Implications of the presence of African ape-like teeth in the Miocene of Kenya
- Dawn of hominids: understanding the ape-hominid dichotomy
- The impact of new excavations from the Cradle of Humankind on our understanding of the evolution of hominins and their cultures
- Stone Age signatures in northernmost South Africa: early archaeology in the Mapungubwe National Park and vicinity
- Vertebral column, bipedalism and freedom of the hands
- Characterising early Homo: cladistic, morphological and metrical analyses of the original Plio-Pleistocene specimens
- Early Homo, ‘robust’ australopithecines and stone tools at Kromdraai, South Africa
- The origin of bone tool technology and the identification of early hominid cultural traditions
- Contribution of genetics to the study of human origins 276
- An overview of the patterns of behavioural change in Africa and Eurasia during the Middle and Late Pleistocene
- From the tropics to the colder climates: contrasting faunal exploitation adaptations of modern humans and Neanderthals
- New neighbours: interaction and image-making during the West European Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition
- Late Mousterian lithic technology: its implications for the pace of the emergence of behavioural modernity and the relationship between behavioural modernity and biological modernity
- Exploring and quantifying technological differences between the MSA I, MSA II and Howieson's Poort at Klasies River
- Stratigraphic integrity of the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave
- Testing and demonstrating the stratigraphic integrity of artefacts from MSA deposits at Blombos Cave, South Africa
- From tool to symbol: the behavioural context of intentionally marked ostrich eggshell from Diepkloof, Western Cape
- Chronology of the Howieson's Poort and Still Bay techno-complexes: assessment and new data from luminescence
- Subsistence strategies in the Middle Stone Age at Sibudu Cave: the microscopic evidence from stone tool residues
- Speaking with beads: the evolutionary significance of personal ornaments
- Personal names index
- Subject index
Environmental changes and hominid evolution: what the vegetation tells us
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 June 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Profile of Professor Tobias
- List of participants
- Foreword
- Address
- Keynote address
- Searching for common ground in palaeoanthropology, archaeology and genetics
- The history of a special relationship: prehistoric terminology and lithic technology between the French and South African research traditions
- Essential attributes of any technologically competent animal
- Significant tools and signifying monkeys: the question of body techniques and elementary actions on matter among apes and early hominids
- Tools and brains: which came first?
- Environmental changes and hominid evolution: what the vegetation tells us
- Implications of the presence of African ape-like teeth in the Miocene of Kenya
- Dawn of hominids: understanding the ape-hominid dichotomy
- The impact of new excavations from the Cradle of Humankind on our understanding of the evolution of hominins and their cultures
- Stone Age signatures in northernmost South Africa: early archaeology in the Mapungubwe National Park and vicinity
- Vertebral column, bipedalism and freedom of the hands
- Characterising early Homo: cladistic, morphological and metrical analyses of the original Plio-Pleistocene specimens
- Early Homo, ‘robust’ australopithecines and stone tools at Kromdraai, South Africa
- The origin of bone tool technology and the identification of early hominid cultural traditions
- Contribution of genetics to the study of human origins 276
- An overview of the patterns of behavioural change in Africa and Eurasia during the Middle and Late Pleistocene
- From the tropics to the colder climates: contrasting faunal exploitation adaptations of modern humans and Neanderthals
- New neighbours: interaction and image-making during the West European Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition
- Late Mousterian lithic technology: its implications for the pace of the emergence of behavioural modernity and the relationship between behavioural modernity and biological modernity
- Exploring and quantifying technological differences between the MSA I, MSA II and Howieson's Poort at Klasies River
- Stratigraphic integrity of the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave
- Testing and demonstrating the stratigraphic integrity of artefacts from MSA deposits at Blombos Cave, South Africa
- From tool to symbol: the behavioural context of intentionally marked ostrich eggshell from Diepkloof, Western Cape
- Chronology of the Howieson's Poort and Still Bay techno-complexes: assessment and new data from luminescence
- Subsistence strategies in the Middle Stone Age at Sibudu Cave: the microscopic evidence from stone tool residues
- Speaking with beads: the evolutionary significance of personal ornaments
- Personal names index
- Subject index
Summary
Abstract
Vegetation and climate influence the lifestyles and behaviour of the fauna in any region, so much so that animals with certain requirements can only live in suitable areas. Modern humankind can manipulate the vegetation to suit his needs but early humankind was at the mercy of the elements. Before we can postulate how and when evolutionary changes, modifications or adaptations occurred in the hominids, we need to know what the vegetation and climate were like. Comparative studies of fossil faunas with modern faunal distributions have been used to predict the palaeoclimate and vegetation. Pollen, phytolith and light isotope studies are also used, but the most direct method is to look at the actual fossil plants. Unfortunately these are not often preserved with the faunal remains but where they do occur an interesting picture emerges. Four case studies will be presented here, from East and South Africa, from short periods within a long time range. From Laetoli (Tanzania) fossil woods have been collected, between 4,3 and 3,8 Ma (million years), which show a complex diversity of species. Many seeds have been preserved just below the Foot Print Tuff, dated at 3,56 Ma. Detailed research has just begun on these plant remains. A multi-disciplinary project at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, has revealed many fossil plants: wood of Guibourtia coleosperma, sedges, grasses and other woody plants still to be identified. These plants come from upper Bed I and lower Bed II, approximately 1,8–1,7 Ma. Together with the tephrostratigraphy and sedimentology, these show that there have been dramatic and frequent fluctuations in the vegetation and climate. The saline lake has expanded and contracted, and faulting has also changed the drainage pattern, so the fluvial systems and wetlands have shifted a number of times. Fossil woods from the Sterkfontein Cave site in South Africa show that there was gallery forest during Member 4 times. One piece of wood has survived from the Florisbad site in South Africa. This is much younger, 259–125 Ka (thousand years), and appears to have been worked into a tool. The wood, Zanthoxylum chalybeum, is not a local one, and shows that there has been a climatic shift and the area is much drier today. The data and interpretation by other researchers and from other sites are discussed here.
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- Information
- From Tools to SymbolsFrom Early Hominids to Modern Humans, pp. 103 - 120Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2005