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34 - Paleoecology of Laetoli, Tanzania
- from Part III - Eastern and Central Africa
- Edited by Sally C. Reynolds, Bournemouth University, René Bobe, University of Oxford
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- Book:
- African Paleoecology and Human Evolution
- Published online:
- 19 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 09 June 2022, pp 435-452
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- Chapter
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Summary
Laetoli in northern Tanzania is one of the most important paleontological and paleoanthropological sites in eastern Africa. Fossils were first discovered in the area in the 1930s, but its significance for hominin evolution was only appreciated after Mary Leakey’s research began in the 1970s (Leakey and Harris, 1987). The site has yielded fossil hominins from the Upper Laetolil Beds (referred to as ULB; dated to 3.6–3.85 Ma), Upper Ndolanya Beds (referred to as UNB; dated to 2.66 Ma), and Upper Ngaloba Beds (>200 ka). The sample of hominins from the ULB is relatively small (just over 30 specimens), but is one of the largest and geologically oldest samples of Australopithecus afarensis (Harrison, 2011a). Moreover, the material includes the holotype of Praeanthropus (Garusi I) and the lectotype of A. afarensis (L.H. 4) (Hennig, 1948; Weinert, 1950; Şenyürek, 1955; Johanson et al., 1978b; Harrison, 2011a). Laetoli is also important for preserving trails of hominin footprints (Hay and Leakey, 1982; Leakey and Harris, 1987), which were presumably made by A. afarensis. The footprint trails corroborate inferences based on the postcranial anatomy that bipedalism was an important component of the terrestrial locomotor behavior of Pliocene hominins (Leakey and Hay, 1979; Day and Wickens, 1980; White, 1980a; Charteris et al., 1981, 1982; M.D. Leakey, 1978, 1979, 1981, 1987a; Hay and Leakey, 1982; Stern and Susman, 1983; Susman et al., 1984, 1985; Tuttle, 1987, 2008; Latimer et al., 1987; White and Suwa, 1987; Tuttle et al., 1990, 1991, 1992; Latimer, 1991; Susman and Stern, 1991; McHenry, 1986, 1991, 1994; Feibel et al., 1996; Agnew and Demas, 1998; Stern, 2000; Ward, 2002; Meldrum, 2004; Schmid, 2004; Harcourt-Smith and Aiello, 2004; Sellers et al., 2005; Berge et al., 2006; Raichlen et al., 2008, 2010; Crompton et al., 2012; Harcourt-Smith, 2015).