The full programme book (PDF) - Royal Geographical Society

T10
The Hominin sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project: testing hypotheses of climatedriven
human evolution and dispersal at Chew Bahir, Ethiopia
Henry Lamb 1 , Andrew Cohen 2 , Frank Schäbitz 3 , Asfawossen Asrat 4 , Philip Barker 5 , Richard Bates 6 ,
Sarah Davies 1 *, Alan Deino 7 , Verena Förster 3 , Matthew Grove 8 , David Huws 9 , Annett Junginger 10 ,
Mathias Konrad-Schmolke 10 , Christine Lane 11 , Melanie Leng 12,13 , Darren Mark 14 , Erin Martin-Jones 1 ,
Nick Pearce 1 , Emma Pearson 15 , Marvin Preusse 10 , Christopher Ramsey 11 , Timothy Raub 6 , Janet
Rethemeyer 16 Helen Roberts 1 , Christian Rogass 17 Martin Trauth 10 , Finn Viehberg 16 Giday
Woldegabriel 18
1 Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Penglais, Aberystwyth
2 Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, 1040E 4th Street, Tucson, USA
3 Seminar of Geography and Education, University of Cologne, 50931, Germany
4 School of Earth Sciences, Addis Ababa University
5 Lancaster Environment Centre, Bailrigg, Lancaster
6 School of Geography and Geosciences, University of St Andrews, St Andrews
7 Berkeley Geochronology Center, 2455 Ridge Road, Berkeley, CA 94709, USA
8 School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, University of Liverpool
9 School of Ocean Sciences, Bangor University, Menai Bridge, Anglesey, LL59 5AB
10 Institute of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 24-25,
14476 Potsdam-Golm, Germany
11 Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, School of Archaeology, University of
Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Rd, Oxford, OX1 3QY
12 Department of Geology, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester
13 NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory, British Geological Survey, Keyworth
14 NERC Argon Isotope Facility, Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, Scottish
Enterprise Technology Park, Rankine Avenue, East Kilbride, G75 0QF
15 School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne
16 Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, University of Cologne, Zulpischer Str. 49a, Germany
17 Heimholtz Centre Potsdam, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Telegrafenberg,
Germany
18 Los Alamos National Laboratory, PO Box 166, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA
There are numerous hypotheses linking climatic trends, events and variability to human
origins, evolution and dispersal. Long palaeoenvironmental records from continental sites
that may allow tests of these hypotheses are only now becoming available, but most are
distant from fossil human sites. The Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project
(HSPDP) aims to obtain long continuous sediment cores spanning critical intervals of
evolutionary history from lacustrine sites close to globally significant hominin sites in East
Africa. Together, the five sites – Northern Awash and Chew Bahir, Ethiopia; West
Turkana, Baringo Basin and Lake Magadi, Kenya – will provide multi-proxy records
spanning the last 4 million years. This will allow us to correlate and compare
environmental changes to the more fragmentary record of evolution, dispersal, extinction
and cultural innovation. The project team will evaluate models of climatic and tectonic
forcing of environmental processes and landscape resources. We will test hypotheses
linking climate variability to physical and cultural evolution. The project is supported by the
International Continental Drilling Program (ICDP), NSF (USA), DFG (Germany) and by
NERC (UK). Drilling began in June 2013 in Kenya.
NERC funded research focuses on the Chew Bahir site in Ethiopia, where a survey of
basin sediments using 2D electrical resistivity tomography was completed in October 2013
and drilling of a 400 m core is scheduled for December 2013. A team of UK Quaternary
scientists will work with German and Ethiopian colleagues to produce a multi-proxy record
which is anticipated will cover the last c. 500,000 years. Detailed analysis will focus on
identifying the nature of climate variability during the penultimate glacial-interglacial
transition (Termination II: c. 125-135 ka), once an outline chronology has been
established. Key proxies are: high-resolution geochemistry; isotopes (δ 13 C, δ1 8 Ocarb,