ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2013
Water, plants, and early human habitats in eastern Africa.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
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19 citing papers in PubMed, 109 citations in OpenAlex.
- Advancing archaeological sedimentary lipid biomarker analysis: A review of recent developments and methodological guidelines.iScience · 2025Review
- Pleistocene drivers of Northwest African hydroclimate and vegetation.Nature communications · 2022Article
- New site at Olduvai Gorge (AGS, Bed I, 1.84 Mya) widens the range of locations where hominins engaged in butchery.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Orbital controls on eastern African hydroclimate in the Pleistocene.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Microbial biomarkers reveal a hydrothermally active landscape at Olduvai Gorge at the dawn of the Acheulean, 1.7 Ma.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- Geochemical Evidence for the Control of Fire by Middle Palaeolithic Hominins.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Isotopic variance among plant lipid homologues correlates with biodiversity patterns of their source communities.PloS one · 2019Article
- Soil and plant phytoliths from thePeerJ · 2019Article
- Early anthropogenic impact on Western Central African rainforests 2,600 y ago.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2018Article
- Modelling the role of groundwater hydro-refugia in East African hominin evolution and dispersal.Nature communications · 2017Article
- Rainfall regimes of the Green Sahara.Science advances · 2017Article
- Changes in northeast African hydrology and vegetation associated with Pliocene-Pleistocene sapropel cycles.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2016Article
- Dietary options and behavior suggested by plant biomarker evidence in an early human habitat.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2016Article
- Early Adverse Experiences and the Developing Brain.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2016Review
- Past and future rainfall in the Horn of Africa.Science advances · 2015Article
- The importance of early experiences for neuro-affective development.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2014Review
- A spring forward for hominin evolution in East Africa.PloS one · 2014Article
- Capturing climate variability during our ancestors' earliest days.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2013Article
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3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Water and its influence on plants likely exerted strong adaptive pressures in human evolution. Understanding relationships among water, plants, and early humans is limited both by incomplete terrestrial records of environmental change and by indirect proxy data for water availability. Here we present a continuous record of stable hydrogen-isotope compositions (expressed as δD values) for lipid biomarkers preserved in lake sediments from an early Pleistocene archaeological site in eastern Africa--Olduvai Gorge. We convert sedimentary leaf- and algal-lipid δD values into estimates for ancient source-water δD values by accounting for biochemical, physiological, and environmental influences on isotopic fractionation via published water-lipid enrichment factors for living plants, algae, and recent sediments. Reconstructed precipitation and lake-water δD values, respectively, are consistent with modern isotopic hydrology and reveal that dramatic fluctuations in water availability accompanied ecosystem changes. Drier conditions, indicated by less negative δD values, occur in association with stable carbon-isotopic evidence for open, C(4)-dominated grassland ecosystems. Wetter conditions, indicated by lower δD values, are associated with expanded woody cover across the ancient landscape. Estimates for ancient precipitation amounts, based on reconstructed precipitation δD values, range between approximately 250 and 700 mm · y(-1) and are consistent with modern precipitation data for eastern Africa. We conclude that freshwater availability exerted a substantial influence on eastern African ecosystems and, by extension, was central to early human proliferation during periods of rapid climate change.
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