A Whole Lot of Shakin' Goin' On

Human Ancestors Lived on Shaky Ground

An article in Science Daily posits that early human beings preferentially chose to live in landscape altered by tectonic movements, i.e. earthquakes:

An international team of scientists has established a link between the shape of the landscape and the habitats preferred by our earliest ancestors. The research, by scientists at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, the University of York and the Institut de Physique du Globe Paris (IPGP), is published in the March 2011 issue of the Journal of Human Evolution.

The four-year study examines the geomorphology (literally the shape of the landscape) around ancient sites in southern Africa.

Lead author, South African Dr Sally Reynolds, a palaeoanthropologist at Witwatersrand who conducted the research during a postdoctoral fellowship at IPGP, says: "We were stunned when during a fieldwork trip in South Africa in 2007, Professor Geoffrey King and I discovered evidence that hominin sites such as Taung, Sterkfontein and Makapansgat, show landscape features in combinations that are not random, but result from tectonic motions, such as earthquakes."

So what is attractive about earthquake zones?

Several lines of scientific evidence suggest that Australopithecus africanus (like the 'Mrs Ples' fossil from Sterkfontein) was adapted to mixed, or mosaic habitats -- landscapes with trees and open grassland, with some wetland marshy areas. The study suggests that it was the type of mosaic environment created by tectonic earth movements near rivers or lakes.

These features including cliffs, sedimented valleys, river gorges and drier plateau areas in close proximity of about 10 kilometres, are created when sections of Earth's crust move in response to pressure, then blocks of land are lifted up, while others are forced downwards. When this happens next to a river, the result is the creation of wetland, marshy areas close to drier plateaus and areas of erosion.... The combination of drinking water, steep cliffs that provided shelter from predators, together with a range of feeding sources constitute the key ingredients for an ideal habitat for our ancestors...

Sounds plausible.  California is a rather nice place most of the time.  Every now and then it gets real shaky, but it your house doesn't fall on you, what's the big  deal:




Oh, yes....