Understanding Climate's Influence on Human Evolution (2010) / Chapter Skim
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From page 1... ...
However, with both a sparse hominin fossil record and an incomplete understanding of past climates, the particular effect of the environment on hominin evolution remains speculative. This presents an opportunity for exciting and fundamental scientific research to improve our understanding of how climate may have helped to shape our species, and thereby to shed light on the evolutionary forces that made us distinctively human.
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From page 2... ...
Similarly, a broad understanding of earth system history, and particularly past climate history, has been gleaned from other fossils found associated with hominin fossil discoveries and from analyses of lake and ocean sediment cores. This material provides a wealth of base information that can be used with the present generation of global climate models to understand paleoclimate characteristics and the factors that controlled past climates, particularly at continental and regional scales, but these are still limited for understanding the local climates that are so important for evaluating causative factors involved with hominin evolution.
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In addition to the high-precision records of climate change that are required from long stratigraphic sequences located close to hominin sites, lake and ocean drilling records will be needed to integrate local climate records from hominin sedimentary basins with regional and global records. Understanding past climates depends on a range of data that can be used to quantitatively reconstruct the range of climatic variables -- temperature, precipitation, seasonality, vegetation and land cover, paleoaltitude, etc.
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From page 4... ...
These models can only be accurately tested by reference to actual paleoenvironmental data from Africa and Eurasia and the surrounding oceans. With the availability of greenhouse gas records and known orbitally controlled changes in solar radiation, along with known changes in orography, volcanism, coastlines, and ocean gateways, models have proven to be remarkably accurate in simulating past climates.
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• A major investment in climate modeling experiments for the key time intervals and regions that are critical for understanding human evolution, focused on understanding the regional climate patterns and fundamental climate forcing mechanisms, and to model at a more local scale the interactions between climate, ecosystems, and species population dynamics. Simulations at high spatial resolution will be required to resolve the relatively fine-scale details of climate, vegetation, and hydrology that are recorded in environmental records in regions of complex local topography, such as the East African Rift System.
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From page 6... ...
An important corollary requirement will be speedy community access to samples and their derived data within all of the disciplinary areas encompassed by this initiative -- the hominin fossils and their associated fauna and flora; as well as the ocean, lake, and terrestrial drilling samples and data. The coordination and management of a major international scientific program for International Climate and Human Evolution Research would require a science advisory structure, with members representing the broader scientific community and with a broad vision of how these research components relate to each other, to foster communication among disciplinary groups, coordinate the implementation elements, and convey the science community's priorities to funding agencies.
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From page 7... ...
No curriculum currently exists to inspire teachers and students to explore the relationship between past climate change, human evolution, and the longterm influence of environment on species survival, adaptation, and mitigation strategies. The following suggestions represent components of a broad effort to redress this deficiency: • Develop opportunities that bring educators and scientists together, and that build new partnerships among research institutions, museums, science centers, and national scientific and education organizations, to contribute to the development of national and state science standards.
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From page 8... ...
The research agenda described here -- although presenting a bold vision that will require substantial resources to bring it to reality -- offers an opportunity to make equally bold steps toward an understanding of the role played by past climates in the evolution of our ancestral lineage.
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