Ecosystem engineering in the Quaternary of the West Coast of South Africa

Despite advances in our understanding of the geographic and temporal scope of the Paleolithic record, we know remarkably little about the evolutionary and ecological consequences of changes in human behavior. Recent inquiries suggest that human evolution reflects a long history of interconnections b...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Evolutionary anthropology 2021-01, Vol.30 (1), p.50-62
Main Authors: Braun, David R., Faith, John Tyler, Douglass, Matthew J., Davies, Benjamin, Power, Mitchel J., Aldeias, Vera, Conard, Nicholas J., Cutts, Russell, DeSantis, Larisa R. G., Dupont, Lydie M., Esteban, Irene, Kandel, Andrew W., Levin, Naomi E., Luyt, Julie, Parkington, John, Pickering, Robyn, Quick, Lynne, Sealy, Judith, Stynder, Deano
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Archaeology
Behavior
Behavior change
Biological Evolution
Diet
Ecosystem
Ecosystems
evolution
generative modeling
Hominidae - physiology
Human evolution
Humans
Interconnections
Landscape
niche construction
paleoecology
Paleolithic
South Africa
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Summary:Despite advances in our understanding of the geographic and temporal scope of the Paleolithic record, we know remarkably little about the evolutionary and ecological consequences of changes in human behavior. Recent inquiries suggest that human evolution reflects a long history of interconnections between the behavior of humans and their surrounding ecosystems (e.g., niche construction). Developing expectations to identify such phenomena is remarkably difficult because it requires understanding the multi‐generational impacts of changes in behavior. These long‐term dynamics require insights into the emergent phenomena that alter selective pressures over longer time periods which are not possible to observe, and are also not intuitive based on observations derived from ethnographic time scales. Generative models show promise for probing these potentially unexpected consequences of human‐environment interaction. Changes in the uses of landscapes may have long term implications for the environments that hominins occupied. We explore other potential proxies of behavior and examine how modeling may provide expectations for a variety of phenomena.
ISSN:1060-1538
1520-6505
DOI:10.1002/evan.21886