Ecomorphological and Ecometric Approaches to Clarifying Homo sapiens Palaeoecology
type: CreativeWork
description: Currently, fossil, archaeological, and genetic evidence suggest that the origins of Homo sapiens lie somewhere in Africa during the late-Early to Middle Pleistocene period (~1,000,000-500,000 years ago). The morphological diversity of hominin fossils, the patterns seen in technological and cultural evolution, and the signals of genetic exchanges from this time period are puzzling and are yet to be fully understood. Hominin evolution, whether biological or cultural, is naturally connected to ecological, environmental, and climatic changes. Thus, reconstructing the ecology of Homo sapiens origins and interpreting the influence of ecological dynamics on the subsequent evolution of our species are crucial areas of research. These broad research questions establish the backdrop for the objectives of this thesis. This thesis reports on the application of established and novel palaeoecological methods - bovid astragalus ecomorphology and dental ecometrics - to bring new and added perspectives on the ecological and environmental context in which Homo sapiens and other hominin relatives evolved. Ecomorphology is initially used to create models capable of predicting habitat preferences of fossil bovids. This is accomplished by fitting the models on a large dataset of morphological variables collected on modern bovid astragali from the National Museum of Kenya, the Cambridge University Museum of Zoology, and the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris. The models created using the modern data are 2.1-3.2x better than chance at predicting habitat types assigned to the specimens in the modern dataset. These models are further validated using an astragalus sample from African Humid Period (AHP) (~14,800-5,500 years ago) sites of the Turkana region. In doing so, this thesis also works towards providing a more complete picture of the unique ecology of the Turkana Basin during the African Humid Period. Building upon these analyses, the modern ecomorphological models are applie…
abstract: Currently, fossil, archaeological, and genetic evidence suggest that the origins of Homo sapiens lie somewhere in Africa during the late-Early to Middle Pleistocene period (~1,000,000-500,000 years ago). The morphological diversity of hominin fossils, the patterns seen in technological and cultural evolution, and the signals of genetic exchanges from this time period are puzzling and are yet to be fully understood. Hominin evolution, whether biological or cultural, is naturally connected to ecological, environmental, and climatic changes. Thus, reconstructing the ecology of Homo sapiens origins and interpreting the influence of ecological dynamics on the subsequent evolution of our species are crucial areas of research. These broad research questions establish the backdrop for the objectives of this thesis. This thesis reports on the application of established and novel palaeoecological methods - bovid astragalus ecomorphology and dental ecometrics - to bring new and added perspectives on the ecological and environmental context in which Homo sapiens and other hominin relatives evolved. Ecomorphology is initially used to create models capable of predicting habitat preferences of fossil bovids. This is accomplished by fitting the models on a large dataset of morphological variables collected on modern bovid astragali from the National Museum of Kenya, the Cambridge University Museum of Zoology, and the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris. The models created using the modern data are 2.1-3.2x better than chance at predicting habitat types assigned to the specimens in the modern dataset. These models are further validated using an astragalus sample from African Humid Period (AHP) (~14,800-5,500 years ago) sites of the Turkana region. In doing so, this thesis also works towards providing a more complete picture of the unique ecology of the Turkana Basin during the African Humid Period. Building upon these analyses, the modern ecomorphological models are applie…
author: Van Schalkwyk, Matthew
language: eng
keywords: palaeoanthropology, palaeoecology, ecomorphology, ecometrics, human evolution, archaeology
license: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/f1328e5f-de3c-45be-89f2-207719abf556/download
license: http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved
date published: 2025-05-09
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:13Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.123942