Research Training Program

Suids and Bovids represent the most common major groups in the Plio-Pleistocene of East Africa. This project examines the preserved relative abundance of these two groups at different levels of resolution to determine relative abundances of the ancient community. The original relative abundances will then test the hypothesis that the mammal community shifted from the domination of Suids to Bovids in the latter part of the Plio-Pliocene. However, paleoecological information on relative abundances can only be determined when taphonomic histories are understood. To recognize biological signals of the ancient community, one must distinguish these indicators from biasing factors that can alter abundance counts.

The taphonomic histories of fossil vertebrate assemblages not only reveal indicators of the ancient biotic community, but also reflect vertebrate evolution and its correlation to ecosystematic and climatic change. The analysis of Suidae and Bovidae fossils in the Koobi Fora Formation is essential to the reconstruction of the ecological structure of the Turkana Basin because their abundances through time exhibit changes within the climate, environment, and ecology. The taphonomic information gathered from these bones also reflects on the differential preservation and accumulation of those fossil assemblages.

The Shungura Formation of the Oreo, Ethiopia provides a standard against which the Suidae and Bovidae abundances of the Koobi Fora Formation of East Turkana can be tested. An analysis of fossil mammal groups from the Koobi Fora Formation will first be compared to unpublished and the published literature of the Shungura Formation. Through the counts and ratios of teeth from surface finds and excavation, differential abundances or patterns of occurrence may address higher level inferences on variant environments, preferential habitats, and ecological and climatic change.

Data collection will be performed at the National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi where the Koobi Fora material is housed. The information gathered from the East Turkana collections will reconstruct Suidae and Bovidae abundances during the Plio-Pleistocene that are crucial in the interpretation of the ecological setting of vertebrate and hominid evolution during this time.