WASHINGTON -- Understanding how past climate may have influenced human evolution could be dramatically enhanced by an international cross-disciplinary research program to improve the sparse human fossil and incomplete climate records and examine the link between the two, says a new report from the National Research Council.
Climate and fossil records suggest that some events in human evolution -- such as the evolution of new species or movements out of Africa -- coincided with substantial changes in African and Eurasian climate. This raises the intriguing possibility that environmental factors affected or controlled our species' evolution. By altering the landscape, past changes in climate may have exerted pressures that led to genetic selection and innovation in humans. But because the human fossil record and our understanding of past climate conditions are incomplete, the details of how climates influenced human evolution remain unclear.
The report recommends several research initiatives over the next 10 to 20 years:
- a major effort to locate new fossil sites using modern remote-sensing tools and traditional ground examination. In addition, many existing sites should be further analyzed to better determine when species first appeared and then disappeared, along with noting specific adaptations and behaviors. Currently, efforts to understand links between climate and evolution are limited by gaps in the human fossil record.
- a comprehensive program to drill on land and in lakes and ocean basins in the regions where humans evolved. An integrated drilling program should be part of a larger effort to collect more data to reconstruct past environments -- including temperatures, precipitation, and vegetation -- near human fossil sites. Describing the plants and animals that lived with our human ancestors is a key component for understanding past environments.
- a major investment in climate modeling experiments for the key time intervals and regions that are critical for understanding human evolution. The objective would be to characterize regional and local climates in the areas where humans evolved and to integrate these modeling experiments with records of the past ecology and environment.
- an enhanced public outreach effort, including teaching curricula and traveling exhibitions, that takes advantage of broad public interest in human evolution and climate change.
A public briefing to discuss the report's findings and recommendations will be held on March 31 at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Several members of the committee that wrote the report will present and answer audience questions. For more information, please call or e-mail the Office of News and Public Information (contacts listed above).
The report was sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies. They are independent, nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice under an 1863 congressional charter. Committee members, who serve pro bono as volunteers, are chosen by the Academies for each study based on their expertise and experience and must satisfy the Academies' conflict-of-interest standards. The resulting consensus reports undergo external peer review before completion. For more information, visit http://national-academies.org/studycommitteprocess.pdf. A committee roster follows.
Copies of UNDERSTANDING CLIMATE'S INFLUENCE ON HUMAN EVOLUTION are available from the National Academies Press; tel. 202-334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242 or on the Internet at HTTP://WWW.NAP.EDU. Reporters may obtain a copy from the Office of News and Public Information (contacts listed above).
[ This news release and report are available at HTTP://NATIONAL-ACADEMIES.ORG ]
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
Division on Earth and Life Studies
Board on Earth Sciences and Resources
COMMITTEE ON THE EARTH SYSTEM CONTEXT FOR HOMININ EVOLUTION
ROBERT M. HAMILTON (CHAIR)
Deputy Executive Director of Division on Earth and Life Sciences
National Research Council (retired)
Zelienople, Pa.
BERHANE ASFAW *
Paleoanthropologist
Rift Valley Research Service
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia
GAIL M. ASHLEY
Professor of Geology, and
Director of Quaternary Studies Program
Department of Geological Sciences
Rutgers University
Piscataway, N.J.
THURE E. CERLING *
Professor
Geology and Geophysics Department
University of Utah
Salt Lake City
ANDREW S. COHEN
Professor of Geosciences, and
Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
University of Arizona
Tucson
PETER B. DEMENOCAL
Professor
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Columbia University
Palisades, N.Y.
ANDREW P. HILL
J. Clayton Stephenson Professor of Anthropology
Yale University
New Haven, Conn.
THOMAS C. JOHNSON
Professor of Geology, and
Director of Large Lakes Observatory
University of Minnesota
Duluth
JOHN E. KUTZBACH *
Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, and Environmental Sciences
Center for Climatic Research
University of Wisconsin
Madison
RICHARD POTTS
Paleoanthropologist, and
Director of Human Origins Program and Curator of
Anthropology
National Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, D.C.
ALAN R. ROGERS
Professor of Anthropology and Adjunct Professor of Biology
University of Utah
Salt Lake City
ALAN WALKER *
Evan Pugh Professor of Anthropology and Biology
Pennsylvania State University
University Park
RESEARCH COUNCIL STAFF
DAVID FEARY
Study Director
* Member, National Academy of Sciences