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Tectonics and human evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Geoffrey King  and
Geoff Bailey
Geoffrey King
Affiliation:
1Laboratoire Tectonique, Institut de Physique du Globe Paris, 4 place Jussieu, 75252 Paris, France (Email: king@ipgp.jussieu.fr)
Geoff Bailey
Affiliation:
2Department of Archaeology, University of York, King's Manor, York, YO1 7EP, UK (Email: gb502@york.ac.uk)
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The authors propose a new model for the origins of humans and their ecological adaptation. The evolutionary stimulus lies not in the savannah but in broken, hilly rough country where the early hominins could hunt and hide. Such ‘roughness’, generated by tectonic and volcanic movement characterises not only the African rift valley but probably the whole route of early hominin dispersal.

Keywords

AfricaRift Valleyhuman originshomininsH. erectusH. ergaster
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 80 , Issue 308 , 1 June 2006 , pp. 265 - 286
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2006

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