Palaeoecology Lecture Videos
Thure Cerling
Fifty years of progress in understanding environments of human evolution in Africa
When Richard Leakey first set foot in the Turkana Basin in the late 1960s, paleoenvironmental interpretations of terrestrial deposits were rudimentary compared to today. Questions posed by paleontologists and anthropologists were the catalyst for developing methods to understand paleoecology; hand-in-hand, new tools prompted further questions and today, isotope geochemistry is used in virtually every site of interest to human evolution.
Gregory Henkes
Stable isotope paleothermometry of human origins in the Turkana Basin
The stable isotope geochemistry of terrestrial carbonates is among the most important recorders of paleoclimate and paleoenvironments in East Africa. In this talk, Greg Henkes will describe our efforts to apply clumped isotopes - a novel isotope thermometer - to reconstruct ancient climates in Turkana, and he will discuss future advances and research directions.
Ellen Miller
The Buluk primates in their environment
Buluk is well-known in paleoanthropology for the recovery of primitive apes and monkeys, from a time period after the divergence of the two lineages but before the evolution of modern forms. New discoveries provide additional insights into the early phases of African ape and monkey evolution, and these findings are discussed in light of current work reconstructing the Buluk paleoenvironment.
Tara Smiley
Ecological diversity of Turkana Basin mammalian faunas in the Miocene: updates from
the Turkana Miocene Project
This talk will present recent work from the Turkana Miocene Project investigating ecological dynamics of mammalian communities in the context of tectonic, climate, and environmental change over the Late Oligocene to Late Miocene in Turkana Basin, Kenya.
Denise F. Su and Kaye E. Reed
Paleoenvironments of Australopithecus afarensis and implications for hominin evolution
Australopithecus afarensis was a long-lived and widespread species, found at sites in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Tanzania that range in age from 3-3.8 Ma. This talk will look at the habitat diversity of A. afarensis and its implications for hominin evolution.
Kevin Uno
Miocene ecosystems and mammal diets in the Turkana Basin
Much of Dr. Richard Leakey’s research career focused on the fossil record of the Plio-Pleistocene (~4-1 Ma) deposits of the Omo Group. Here, I present new data on ecosystems and mammal diets from the Turkana Miocene Project that focus on the less well-studied deposits spanning the Oligocene to Miocene epochs.