oldest evidence of toolmaking hominins in a grassland-dominated ecosystem最古老的证据grassland-dominated工具制造人类的生态系统.pdfVIP

Oldest Evidence of Toolmaking Hominins in a Grassland- Dominated Ecosystem 1 2 3 4 5 Thomas W. Plummer *, Peter W. Ditchfield , Laura C. Bishop , John D. Kingston , Joseph V. Ferraro , 6 7 8,9 David R. Braun , Fritz Hertel , Richard Potts 1 Department of Anthropology, Queens College and NYCEP, Flushing, New York, United States of America, 2 Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, 3 Research Centre in Evolutionary Anthropology and Palaeoecology, School of Natural Sciences and Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom, 4 Department of Anthropology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America, 5 Department of Anthropology, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, United States of America, 6 Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town, Rondebsoch, South Africa, 7 Department of Biology, California State University, Northridge, Northridge, California, United States of America, 8 Human Origins Program, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C., United States of America, 9 Paleontology Section, Earth Sciences Department, National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya Abstract Background: Major biological and cultural innovations in late Pliocene hominin evolution are frequently linked to the spread or fluctuating presence of C4 grass in African ecosystems. Whereas the deep sea record of global climatic change provides indirect evidence for an increase in C4 vegetation with a shift towards a cooler, drier and more variable global climatic regime beginning approximately 3 million years ago (Ma),