William K. Hart

Stratigraphic, chronological and behavioural contexts of Pleistocene Homo sapiens from Middle Awash, Ethiopia

Clarifying the geographic, environmental and behavioural contexts in which the emergence of anatomically modern Homo sapiens occurred has proved difficult, particularly because Africa lacked adequate geochronological, palaeontological and archaeological evidence. The discovery of anatomically modern Homo sapiens fossils at Herto, Ethiopia, changes this. Here we report on stratigraphically associated Late Middle Pleistocene artefacts and fossils from fluvial and lake margin sandstones of the Upper Herto Member of the Bouri Formation, Middle Awash, Afar Rift, Ethiopia. The fossils and artefacts are dated between 160,000 and 154,000 years ago by precise age determinations using the 40Ar/39Ar method. The archaeological assemblages contain elements of both Acheulean and Middle Stone Age technocomplexes. Associated faunal remains indicate repeated, systematic butchery of hippopotamus carcasses. Contemporary adult and juvenile Homo sapiens fossil crania manifest bone modifications indicative of deliberate mortuary practices.

Asa issie, aramis and the origin of Australopithecus

The origin of Australopithecus, the genus widely interpreted as ancestral to Homo, is a central problem in human evolutionary studies. Australopithecus species differ markedly from extant African apes and candidate ancestral hominids such as Ardipithecus, Orrorin and Sahelanthropus. The earliest described Australopithecus species is Au. anamensis, the probable chronospecies ancestor of Au. afarensis. Here we describe newly discovered fossils from the Middle Awash study area that extend the known Au. anamensis range into northeastern Ethiopia. The new fossils are from chronometrically controlled stratigraphic sequences and date to about 4.1–4.2 million years ago. They include diagnostic craniodental remains, the largest hominid canine yet recovered, and the earliest Australopithecus femur. These new fossils are sampled from a woodland context. Temporal and anatomical intermediacy between Ar. ramidus and Au. afarensis suggest a relatively rapid shift from Ardipithecus to Australopithecus in this region of Africa, involving either replacement or accelerated phyletic evolution.

The characteristics and chronology of the earliest Acheulean at Konso, Ethiopia

The Acheulean technological tradition, characterized by a large (>10 cm) flake-based component, represents a significant technological advance over the Oldowan. Although stone tool assemblages attributed to the Acheulean have been reported from as early as circa 1.6–1.75 Ma, the characteristics of these earliest occurrences and comparisons with later assemblages have not been reported in detail. Here, we provide a newly established chronometric calibration for the Acheulean assemblages of the Konso Formation, southern Ethiopia, which span the time period ∼1.75 to <1.0 Ma. The earliest Konso Acheulean is chronologically indistinguishable from the assemblage recently published as the world’s earliest with an age of ∼1.75 Ma at Kokiselei, west of Lake Turkana, Kenya. This Konso assemblage is characterized by a combination of large picks and crude bifaces/unifaces made predominantly on large flake blanks. An increase in the number of flake scars was observed within the Konso Formation handaxe assemblages through time, but this was less so with picks. The Konso evidence suggests that both picks and handaxes were essential components of the Acheulean from its initial stages and that the two probably differed in function. The temporal refinement seen, especially in the handaxe forms at Konso, implies enhanced function through time, perhaps in processing carcasses with long and stable cutting edges. The documentation of the earliest Acheulean at ∼1.75 Ma in both northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia suggests that behavioral novelties were being established in a regional scale at that time, paralleling the emergence of Homo erectus-like hominid morphology.

Geology and palaeontology of the Late Miocene Middle Awash valley, Afar rift, Ethiopia

The Middle Awash study area of Ethiopias Afar rift has yielded abundant vertebrate fossils (≈ 10,000), including several hominid taxa. The study area contains a long sedimentary record spanning Late Miocene (5.3–11.2 Myr ago) to Holocene times. Exposed in a unique tectonic and volcanic transition zone between the main Ethiopian rift (MER) and the Afar rift, sediments along the western Afar rift margin in the Middle Awash provide a unique window on the Late Miocene of Ethiopia. These deposits have now yielded the earliest hominids, described in an accompanying paper and dated here to between 5.54 and 5.77 Myr. These geological and palaeobiological data from the Middle Awash provide fresh perspectives on hominid origins and early evolution. Here we show that these earliest hominids derive from relatively wet and wooded environments that were modulated by tectonic, volcanic, climatic and geomorphic processes. A similar wooded habitat also has been suggested for the 6.0 Myr hominoid fossils recently recovered from Lukeino, Kenya. These findings require fundamental reassessment of models that invoke a significant role for global climatic change and/or savannah habitat in the origin of hominids.

New age constraints on the timing of volcanism and tectonism in the northern Main Ethiopian Rift–southern Afar transition zone (Ethiopia)

Forty new K-Ar and / isotopic ages from the northern Main Ethiopian Rift (MER)–southern Afar transition zone provide insights into the volcano-tectonic evolution of this portion of the East African Rift system. The earliest evidence of volcanic activity in this region is manifest as 24–23 Ma pre-rift flood basalts. Transition zone flood basalt activity renewed at approximately 10 Ma, and preceded the initiation of modern rift margin development. Bimodal basalt–rhyolite volcanism in the southern Afar rift floor began at approximately 7 Ma and continued into Recent times. In contrast, post-subsidence volcanic activity in the northern MER is dominated by Mio-Pliocene silicic products from centers now covered by Quaternary volcanic and sedimentary lithologies. Unlike other parts of the MER, Mio-Pliocene silicic volcanism in the MER–Afar transition zone is closely associated with fissural basaltic products. The presence of Pliocene age ignimbrites on the plateaus bounding the northern MER, whose sources are found in the present rift, indicates that subsidence of this region was gradual, and that it attained its present physiography with steep escarpments only in the Plio-Pleistocene. Large 7–5 Ma silicic centers along the southern Afar and northeastern MER margins apparently formed along an E–W-oriented regional structural feature parallel to the already established southern escarpment of the Afar. The Addis Ababa rift embayment and the growth of 4.5–3 Ma silicic centers in the Addis Ababa area are attributed to the formation of a major cross-rift structure and its intersection with the same regional E–W structural trend. This study illustrates the episodic nature of rift development and volcanic activity in the MER–Afar transition zone, and the link between this activity and regional structural and tectonic features.

The Geological, Isotopic, Botanical, Invertebrate, and Lower Vertebrate Surroundings of Ardipithecus ramidus

Sediments containing Ardipithecus ramidus were deposited 4.4 million years ago on an alluvial floodplain in Ethiopia’s western Afar rift. The Lower Aramis Member hominid-bearing unit, now exposed across a >9-kilometer structural arc, is sandwiched between two volcanic tuffs that have nearly identical 40Ar/39Ar ages. Geological data presented here, along with floral, invertebrate, and vertebrate paleontological and taphonomic evidence associated with the hominids, suggest that they occupied a wooded biotope over the western three-fourths of the paleotransect. Phytoliths and oxygen and carbon stable isotopes of pedogenic carbonates provide evidence of humid cool woodlands with a grassy substrate.

Chronostratigraphy of the Miocene–Pliocene Sagantole Formation, Middle Awash Valley, Afar rift, Ethiopia

The Sagantole Formation comprises more than 200 m of lacustrine, alluvial, and volcaniclastic sediments, plus compositionally bimodal tephras and basaltic lavas, exposed in a domelike horst named the Central Awash Complex in the southwestern Afar rift of Ethiopia. The Sagantole Formation is widely known for abundant vertebrate faunas, including the 4.4 Ma primitive hominid Ardipithecus ramidus . New lithostratigraphic data are used to subdivide the Sagantole Formation into the Kuseralee, Gawto, Haradaso, Aramis, Beidareem, Adgantole, and Belohdelie Members, in ascending order. The members are defined on the basis of lithologic differences and laterally continuous bounding tephras. 40 Ar/ 39 Ar dating of 12 intercalated volcanic units firmly establishes the age of the Sagantole Formation to be 5.6 to 3.9 Ma, significantly older than previous proposals based on erroneous correlations. Magnetostratigraphic data reveal eight paleomagnetic polarity zones, which can be correlated unambiguously with the Thvera, Sidufjall, Nunivak, and Cochiti Subchrons of the Gilbert Chron. Thus, by reference to the geomagnetic polarity time scale, seven additional chronological datums can be placed in the Sagantole Formation. With a total of 19 such datums, the age resolution anywhere in the Sagantole Formation is better than ±100 k.y., making this the best-dated Miocene–Pliocene succession in Africa.

Lithosphere-scale thrusting in the western U.S. Cordillera as constrained by Sr and Nd isotopic transitions in Neogene volcanic rocks

The western Idaho suture zone juxtaposes continental and oceanic terranes with distinctive Sr and Nd isotopic signatures across a sharp isotopic transition coincident with the Mesozoic {sup 87}Sr/{sup 86}Sr = 0.706 line (MSL). Late Cretaceous to Eocene granitic plutons that define the MSL are allochthonous and were transported eastward by {approximately}150 km during late Mesozoic to Tertiary (ca. 100-55 Ma) thrusting. Sr and Nd isotopic compositions of Neogene rhyolites and basalts from southwestern Idaho, southeastern Oregon, and northern Nevada define isotopic transitions coincident with the MSL; there are continental affinities east of long 116{degree}30minutesW and oceanic affinities west of 119W. Between these longitudes, intermediate isotopic compositions imply derivation of magmas from both continental and oceanic mantle (basalts) and crustal (rhyolites) sources. It is inferred that the basal decollement of the Mesozoic and Tertiary contractional orogen dips westward below depths of segregation of basaltic magmas, and that oceanic lithospheric mantle was thrust eastward over a shelf of old, isotopically evolved continental lithospheric mantle that now protrudes {approximately}150 km west of the MSL.

Flood Basalt Volcanism in the Northwestern United States

Flood basalt volcanism in the northwestern U.S. is but one manifestation of the magmatically active western boundary of the North American Plate. This activity relates directly to the convergence between the North American Plate and various oceanic plates to the west. Prior to the Oligocene-early Miocene, convergence was manifest by characteristically calc-alkaline volcanism and plutonism in western North America associated with subduction zone magma genesis (e.g. Lipman et al., 1972). Roughly 30 My ago, collision between the North American plate and the East Pacific Rise began to convert this consumptive plate boundary to the strike-slip motion now evident as the San Andreas fault system (Atwater, 1970). Accompanying the transition from the compressional, subduction related tectonics to the extensional regime now characteristic of the Basin and Range province, the character of the volcanic products in the western U.S. shifted from predominantly calc-alkaline to bimodal basalt-rhyolite (e.g. Lipman et al., 1972; Christiansen and Lipman, 1972; Christiansen and McKee, 1978).

Tectonic controls on magma genesis and evolution in the northwestern United States

Abstract Field, chronologic, chemical, and isotopic data for late Cenozoic basaltic rocks from the northwestern United States illustrate the relationship between crustal structure and tectonic forces in controlling the genesis and evolution of continental volcanism. In the northwestern U.S., the first major episode of basaltic volcanism was triggered by crustal rifting in a “back-arc” environment, east of the westward-migrating volcanic arc created by the subduction of the Juan-de-Fuca plate beneath the North American plate. Rifting and volcanism were concentrated by pre-existing zones of crustal weakness associated with boundaries between the old Archean core of the continent and newly accreted terranes. Basalts erupted during this time (Columbia River, Steens Mountain) show evidence of significant fractionation histories including contamination by crust of varying age depending on the crustal structure at the eruption site. Presumably this reflects ponding and stagnation of primary magmas in the crust or at the crust-mantle interface due to their encounter with thick crust, not yet extended and still containing its low-density, easily fusible component. Continued rifting of this crust, and modification of its composition through extraction of rhyolitic partial melts and deposition of the fractionation products from primary basaltic melts, coupled with a shift in stress orientation roughly 10.5 Ma ago, allowed relatively unfractionated and uncontaminated magmas to begin reaching the surface. In the western part of the region (Oregon Plateau), these magmas tapped a mantle source similar to that which produced most of the ocean island basalts of the northern hemisphere. To the east (Snake River Plain), however, the mantle sampled by basaltic volcanism has isotopic characteristics suggesting it has preserved a record of incompatible element enrichment processes associated with the formation of the overlying Archean crustal section some 2.6 Ga ago.