Accurate reconstructions of paleoenvironmental conditions are imperative for testing hypotheses concerning human evolution, as so many of the pressures of natural selection stem from the environment. At many fossil hominin sites, mammalian remains are among the best preserved paleoecological proxies. Ecomorphology quantifies skeletal morphological characteristics and correlates variations in those characteristics to adaptations for specific habitats. In order to understand how skeletal morphology reflects adaptations to habitats, data from a large sample of extant mammalian specimens must be analyzed. Only after correlations have been established between specimens of known habitat types and their morphology can the method be applied to fossil specimens. This study applies ecomorphology methods to the family Cervidae (deer and relatives), which is usually the dominant taxon in Eurasian paleoanthropological assemblages. Data for 31 extant cervid species (142 specimens) have been collected and analyzed using Geometric Morphometrics (GM) on joint surface margins and here will be applied to fossil specimens. GM is especially useful for studies of ecomorphology as it is able to compare and analyze entire shapes at once. Data will be submitted to canonical variates analysis in order to categorize unknown fossil specimens into habitat types. The methods introduced here can be applied to broken bones, which are the norm in paleontological sites, thus increasing fossil specimen sample sizes upon which paleohabitat reconstructions are made. This study will compare fossil sites that do contain hominin remains (Ubeidiya, Israel) and those that do not (St. Vallier and Seneze, France and Valea Graunceanului, Romania) to each other and to other contemporaneous sites to evaluate the range of habitats that early Eurasian hominins inhabited. This study will test two competing hypotheses for hominin dispersal: that these hominins were tracking specific habitats as they dispersed from Africa or that these hominins were more generalistic than their ancestors and were able to survive in a wide variety of habitat types. Understanding the range of habitats Homo erectus could inhabit will elucidate how flexible this hominin's behavior was and how it was the first hominin to disperse to Eurasia.
This project will provide insight into how Homo erectus, our direct ancestor, became the first hominin to disperse to Eurasia and what that dispersal means in terms of its adaptive and behavioral capabilities. Habitat reconstructions of four Eurasian sites will illustrate the range of habitats that were and were not occupied by hominins as they dispersed from Africa. The methods introduced in this study provide a new proxy, cervid ecomorphology, which can be utilized to reconstruct paleohabitats from any site that contains deer remains and will provide more complete pictures of hominin lifeways. By analyzing joint surface margins with geometric morphometrics, broken bones can be included in paleohabitat reconstructions and will enable more thorough use of the reserved fossil record, allowing for more accurate paleohabitat reconstructions.
