ArticlePloS one2013
Early human speciation, brain expansion and dispersal influenced by African climate pulses.
Article in PloS one, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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20 citing papers in PubMed.
- BiomarkerProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- African mitochondrial haplogroup L7: a 100,000-year-old maternal human lineage discovered through reassessment and new sequencing.Scientific reports · 2022Article
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- Different environmental variables predict body and brain size evolution in Homo.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Molecular evolutionary analysis of human primary microcephaly genes.BMC ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Technological innovations at the onset of the Mid-Pleistocene Climate Transition in high-latitude East Asia.National science review · 2021Article
- The Possible Role of Body Temperature in Modulating Brain and Body Sizes in Hominin Evolution.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Sporadic sampling, not climatic forcing, drives observed early hominin diversity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2018Article
- Pattern and process in hominin brain size evolution are scale-dependent.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2018Article
- Why are there so many explanations for primate brain evolution?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2017Review
- Aridity and hominin environments.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2017Article
- Modelling the role of groundwater hydro-refugia in East African hominin evolution and dispersal.Nature communications · 2017Article
- Testing Dietary Hypotheses of East African Hominines Using Buccal Dental Microwear Data.PloS one · 2016Article
- A synthesis of the theories and concepts of early human evolution.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2015Article
- Pan-African phylogeny of Mus (subgenus Nannomys) reveals one of the most successful mammal radiations in Africa.BMC evolutionary biology · 2014Article
- Aridification of the Sahara desert caused by Tethys Sea shrinkage during the Late Miocene.Nature · 2014Article
- A spring forward for hominin evolution in East Africa.PloS one · 2014Article
- Global warming and neurodegenerative disorders: speculations on their linkage.BioImpacts : BI · 2014Article
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2 authors.
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Abstract
Early human evolution is characterised by pulsed speciation and dispersal events that cannot be explained fully by global or continental paleoclimate records. We propose that the collated record of ephemeral East African Rift System (EARS) lakes could be a proxy for the regional paleoclimate conditions experienced by early hominins. Here we show that the presence of these lakes is associated with low levels of dust deposition in both West African and Mediterranean records, but is not associated with long-term global cooling and aridification of East Africa. Hominin expansion and diversification seem to be associated with climate pulses characterized by the precession-forced appearance and disappearance of deep EARS lakes. The most profound period for hominin evolution occurs at about 1.9 Ma; with the highest recorded diversity of hominin species, the appearance of Homo (sensu stricto) and major dispersal events out of East Africa into Eurasia. During this period, ephemeral deep-freshwater lakes appeared along the whole length of the EARS, fundamentally changing the local environment. The relationship between the local environment and hominin brain expansion is less clear. The major step-wise expansion in brain size around 1.9 Ma when Homo appeared was coeval with the occurrence of ephemeral deep lakes. Subsequent incremental increases in brain size are associated with dry periods with few if any lakes. Plio-Pleistocene East African climate pulses as evinced by the paleo-lake records seem, therefore, fundamental to hominin speciation, encephalisation and migration.
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