Journal Article10.1126/SCIENCE.284.5414.625
Environment and Behavior of 2.5-Million-Year-Old Bouri Hominids
Jean de Heinzelin,J. Desmond Clark,Tim D. White,William R. Hart,Paul R. Renne,Paul R. Renne,Giday WoldeGabriel,Yonas Beyene,Elisabeth S. Vrba +8 more
TL;DR: The combined evidence suggests that behavioral changes associated with lithic technology and enhanced carnivory may have been coincident with the emergence of the Homo clade from Australopithecus afarensis in eastern Africa.
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Abstract: The Hata Member of the Bouri Formation is defined for Pliocene sedimentary outcrops in the Middle Awash Valley, Ethiopia The Hata Member is dated to 25 million years ago and has produced a new species of Australopithecus and hominid postcranial remains not currently assigned to species Spatially associated zooarchaeological remains show that hominids acquired meat and marrow by 25 million years ago and that they are the near contemporary of Oldowan artifacts at nearby Gona The combined evidence suggests that behavioral changes associated with lithic technology and enhanced carnivory may have been coincident with the emergence of the Homo clade from Australopithecus afarensis in eastern Africa
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Intercalibration of standards, absolute ages and uncertainties in 40Ar/39Ar dating
Paul R. Renne,Paul R. Renne,Carl C. Swisher,Alan L. Deino,Daniel B. Karner,Thomas L. Owens,Donald J. DePaolo +6 more
TL;DR: McDougall et al. as mentioned in this paper derived intercalibration factors for McClure Mountain hornblende (MMhb-1), GHC-305 biotite, GA-1550, Taylor Creek sanidine (TCs), relative to Fish Canyon sanidine(ACs), were derived from 797 analyses involving 11 separate irradiations with well-constrained neutronfluence variations.
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2.5-million-year-old stone tools from Gona, Ethiopia
Sileshi Semaw,Paul R. Renne,John W.K. Harris,Craig S. Feibel,Raymond L. Bernor,N. Fesseha,K. Mowbray +6 more
TL;DR: The artefacts show surprisingly sophisticated control of stone fracture mechanics, equivalent to much younger Oldowan assemblages of Early Pleistocene age, which indicates an unexpectedly long period of technological stasis in the Oldowan.
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Percussion marks, tooth marks, and experimental determinations of the timing of hominid and carnivore access to long bones at FLK Zinjanthropus, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania
TL;DR: The results show that the sequence of carnivore and hominid access to long bones, and their respective carcass tissue yields, was more complex, as is consistent with a dominantly passive scavenging mode of carcass acquisition by hominids hypothesized earlier on the basis of skeletal part data and paleoecological considerations.
568
Extension of the astronomically calibrated (polarity) time scale to the Miocene/Pliocene boundary
TL;DR: The early Pleistocene to late Pliocene astronomically calibrated time scale of Shackleton et al. as mentioned in this paper is extended to the Miocene/Pliocene boundary by correlating the detailed record of CaCO3 cycles in the Trubi and the lower part of the overlying Narbone Formation (Rossello composite section; Sicily).
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