Doctoral Dissertation Research: Local Responses to Global Environmental Shifts During the Emergence of Hominins

Geological and paleontological research provides a deep-time perspective of past events that can inform scientists and policymakers about the long-term consequences of environmental patterns. Of particular interest to both scientists and the general public is the relationship between environmental change and hominin evolution. This doctoral dissertation project investigates how shifts in the environment may have played a role in the origins of two major lineages of hominins, Paranthropus and Homo.

By examining how the environments in which these early hominins lived changed leading up to the divergence of Paranthropus and Homo, this project provides important evidence of the impact of environment variability on a local scale, as well as insight into the evolutionary drivers that spurred the emergence of new hominin lineages. A critical goal of this project is to train a female graduate student in STEM and to create opportunities for other women and students from underrepresented groups to gain first-hand experience in conducting science through mentorship and research.

It also fosters international research collaborations and academic linkages and public science outreach and engagement.

The origin and divergence of the Paranthropus and Homo lineages coincides with a period of profound environmental variability and instability at the regional and local levels. To understand the contributing factors that may have precipitated this major evolutionary event, it is important to determine the environmental context in which the two new lineages emerged.

However, the nature of the relationship between global and local-scale environmental change remains poorly resolved during this critical period of human evolution. The goal of this project is to investigate the underlying environmental factors potentially driving the emergence of Paranthropus and Homo by (1) using mesowear, microwear and stable isotope analyses to reconstruct the local paleoenvironment; (2) comparing paleoenvironmental data from other sites in the region to document patterns of local environmental change; and (3) investigating the relationship between environmental change and the extinction and speciation of hominins and other mammals.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.