With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Tim White will purchase a four wheel drive Toyota Landcruiser. Dr. White and his collaborators conduct NSF supported paleoanthropological field research in the Middle Awash region of Ethiopia. Because there are no roads in this region and the rugged nature of the terrain, four wheel drive vehicles provide the only feasible means of ground transportation. Given the multidisciplinary nature of the work and the number of investigators involved, the team is critically short of field vehicles and this purchase will allow the research to proceed in a more efficient manner. The Middle Awash paleoanthropological research project is a multidisciplinary effort whose objective is the elucidation of human origins and evolution. The research area contains a succession of fossiliferous sediments spanning the last six million years. Recent finds have established the Middle Awash as one of the world's most important paleoanthropological areas and the project is devoted to recovering evidence for early hominid origins and evolution and placing this evidence in precisely controlled spatial, temporal and environmental contexts. In 1992 and 1993 the team recovered evidence of the earliest hominid species Australopithecus ramidus. In 1994 the site of Aramis yielded the oldest partial skeleton of a human ancestor yet recovered. This research is clearly important and productive. Purchase of an additional vehicle will make it more so.
