HUMAN EVOLUTION IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Michelle Drapeau

Department of Anthropology, University of Montreal

Axis 3, which focuses on Africa, consists of two distinct projects:

PROJECT 3.1 Modelling the ESA - MSA transition in the Upper Luangwa Valley, Zambia.
Direction Michael BISSON and Ariane BURKE

This project will focus on the transition from Early Stone Age (ESA) to Middle Stone Age (MSA) in Central Africa and explore the link between this technological transition and environmental variability during the middle Pleistocene. The ESA/MSA transition is a complex and still poorly understood phenomenon associated with the appearance of complex cognition and the appearance of our species ~300,000 years before the present. During the middle Pleistocene the African continent underwent a series of environmental transformations related to insolation cycles and monsoon dynamics. The environmental variability induced by these climatic cycles is potentially associated with the appearance and transmission of new technological traditions, as well as the dispersion of hominin populations.

PROJECT 3.2. Study of the Pliocene Mursi Formation, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia
Direction Michelle DRAPEAU

This project builds upon field research in East Africa and will link paleoclimatic reconstructions with stable carbon and oxygen isotope data from fossil faunal enamel and paleosol carbonates. The aim of the project is to reconstruct the evolution of the climate in East Africa during the Pliocene in order to better define the environmental context of these species and to determine whether it was changes in fauna and flora that may have triggered speciation and occupation of particular territories of the first Australopithecines.