The main goals of this paleoanthropology field and lab project, awarded to Brian Richmond and colleagues, are to 1) recover more of a newly-discovered associated fossil human skeleton possibly belonging to the extinct species Paranthropus boisei, and perform detailed analyses of the fossil anatomy to improve our understanding of the evolution of the human upper limb and hand; 2) excavate, document, and analyze multiple layers of fossil human footprints at sites in Kenya; 3) conduct surveys and excavations to find new footprint layers in targeted areas and to document the paleo-environmental and archeological contexts of the sites.
Fossil human skeletons and footprints are among the rarest and most informative discoveries relating to human evolution. Recent research has unearthed both, along with stone tools and fossilized butchered bones, at a site complex (FwJj14) dating to 1.51-1.53 million years ago near Ileret, Kenya. The research team also discovered fossilized footprint layers, ranging in age from 1.4-1.5 million years ago, near site GaJi10 at Koobi Fora, Kenya. This award funds fieldwork to recover more of the fossil human skeleton and footprints, and data on their ancient ecological setting. These discoveries offer a unique opportunity to test long-standing hypotheses, ask novel questions, and dramatically improve our understanding of the evolution of human upper limb and hand anatomy, walking gait, ancient human behavior, and the environmental contexts of several extinct human species living in the Lake Turkana area 1.5 million years ago, a critical time in human evolutionary history.
This project offers a number of measurable broader impacts for the scientific community by fostering interdisciplinary and international collaboration, improving minority representation in paleoanthropology in the US and improving training of African scholars.. The researchers will make data from this project, including 3D maps of footprints available to the National Museum of Kenya (NMK) for curation, and to other scholars directly and via online-accessible databases (e.g., fossil animal data in the Turkana Database, and 3D digital footprint surfaces on the Human Origins Program website at the Smithsonian's NMNH). Many fossil footprint surfaces are fragile and subject to rapid erosion; our project will document and, when appropriate, collect and preserve at the NMK these irreplaceable resources. This project will strengthen international (US-Kenya-South Africa) and, within the US, inter-institutional (GW-JHU-Smithsonian-Rutgers) collaborations. Furthermore, this project takes very seriously its commitment to train US students from groups underrepresented (e.g., African-American, Hispanic) in paleoanthropology, as well as graduate students from Kenya and South Africa.
