Lothagam Research Project

The late Miocene origin of the hominin clade in Africa occurred in the context of major abiotic and biotic changes, including global cooling and aridification, the expansion of grassland ecosystems, and extensive faunal exchange between Africa and Eurasia. Though geochemical, geochronological, and paleontological datasets have clarified the timing of these key events, we still know little of how shifts in ancient African environments and biotas translated to changes in the structure and functioning of the local ecosystems within which the earliest hominins evolved. This knowledge gap largely stems from the scarcity of fossiliferous sites between ~ 10-6 Ma in eastern Africa, with the rich site of Lothagam (West Turkana, Kenya) being the outstanding exception. We recently established the Lothagam Research Project, a long-term paleontological field work project on the Lothagam sequence. In addition to the new field work, we are incorporating existing collections housed at the Kenya National Museum (Nairobi) into our systematic, paleobiological, and paleoecological studies of the Turkana Basin's late Miocene ecosystems.

Our collaborators in Africa, Europe, and North America include: Emily Beverly (University of Houston), Scott Blumenthal (University of Oregon), Kendra Chritz (University of British Columbia), Craig Feibel (Rutgers University), Camille Grohé (Université de Poitiers), Rahab Kinyanjui (National Museum of Kenya), Ignacio Lazagabaster (Museum für Naturkunde), Cindy Liutkus-Pierce (Appalachian State University), Eve Omondi (Turkana Basin Institute), Maria Rios (NOVA University Lisbon), Chris Rowan (Columbia University), and Kevin Uno (Columbia University). We also work closely with teams exploring other Miocene sites in the Turkana area as members of the Turkana Miocene Project.