GEO 1009F Week 6 (18 – 22 March 2024)

Assignment 1

ARCHAEOLOGY assignment week 1: CLIMATE AND EVOLUTION

STUDENT
NAME:________________________________________________________

STUDENT
NUMBER:____________________________________________________

Introduction
All living systems are influenced by climate and environmental change. This includes the evolution
of species. Human evolution has been characterized by many significant events that have been
driven by environmental change, such as bipedalism (walking on two legs). In order to truly
understand the evolutionary changes that we see in the hominin record, it is therefore very
important for scientists to be able to reconstruct past climatic/environmental conditions.

In this assignment, you will work with some of the important types of evidence that scientists use to
reconstruct palaeoclimates and palaeoenvironments. Note that you are looking at real data, in all
its complexity. There are patterns, but there is also variation (noise) around these patterns – you will
need to identify the important trends through the ‘noise’.

Global Climate

Marine core records

The figure on the next page displays oxygen isotope data spanning the past 5.3 million years (from
the Early Pliocene to present). These data are produced from the calcite shells of benthic
foraminifers (single-celled protists that live on the seafloor). These microfossils are collected within
sediments from deep-sea cores and analyzed on a mass spectrometer. The ratio of stable oxygen-18
to oxygen-16 (18O/16O) in the foram shells (CaCO3) is used in ocean-climate research as proxies
(indirect evidence) for changes in temperature and ice-volume through time. Such isotopic ratios are
depicted using the “del” notation: δ18O. The ∆T in the plot below is equivalent to the change in
temperature (°C) in the deep ocean through time. The data shown below represent a composite of
57 deep-sea cores (from Lisiecki and Raymo, 2005; Paleoceanography, 20, PA1003,
doi:10.1029/2004PA001071.)

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Exercise:
Wet Interglacial

Arid Glacial

1) Identify three shifts in the deep-sea benthic foraminifer δ18O values over the past 5.3
million years (Ma). There is a major trend that started at approximately 5.3 Ma and carries
on to the present, as well as a few significant changes during the past 3 - 2.5 Ma. Remember
that peaks are Interglacial periods and troughs are glacial periods, and that they represent
totally different climatic conditions.
_________________________________________________________________________(1)
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2) How would the broad climatic shift from about 3 Ma have affected the environments that
hominins evolved in?
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Marine core records, Milancovitch cycles and climate

Milankovitch cycles are driven by Earth’s natural orbital oscillations, which influence the amount of
incoming solar radiation (insolation) received. Periodic oscillations in insolation affect temperature
and precipitation patterns, particularly in the high latitudes. Changes in insolation are the principle
driver of glacial cycles at high latitudes, and wet-dry cycles at lower latitudes throughout geologic
time. These oscillations are manifest in many different types of climate proxy data including
lithology, sediment grain size, sediment color, magnetic susceptibility, gamma ray, stable isotopes,
et cetera. Milankovitch cycles are pervasive through the geologic record, with many excellent
examples preserved in deep-sea sediment cores.There are three major periodicities of Milankovitch
cycles related to eccentricity of Earth’s orbit around the Sun, obliquity in Earth’s axial tilt relative to
the plane of the ecliptic, and precession of the seasons.

The figure on the next page shows the variations in Earth’s orbital parameters (precession, obliquity,
and eccentricity) and the resulting changes in solar energy flux (insolation) at 65°N over the past 1
Ma. Again, the observed glacial cycles are based on stable isotopes of oxygen (δ18O) from deep-sea
benthic foraminifers (lower panel). Interglacials are shown with the gray bars.

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Exercise:

1) Which of the Milancovitch cycles fit best with the periodicity of the marine core data?

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Ice core records

Some of the most detailed climate records come from ice cores drilled into the Arctic or Antarctic ice
caps. Snow falling in the polar regions of the earth is sometimes preserved as annual layers within
the ice sheets. These annual layers provide a record of the earth's climate as dust and gas bubbles
are trapped within the ice. The composition of bubbles of air trapped in the ice is a measure of the
composition of the atmosphere in ancient times. As snow continues to fall it makes more and more
layers which exert pressure on the layers below. This caused the snow to become tightly compacted
and this is how air is trapped within the deposited layer.

By measuring oxygen isotope ratios in this trapped air, scientists are able to come up with an
estimation for average global temperatures at the time that that layer was deposited. This is a
measure of the ratio of the heavy isotope of oxygen, 18O, relative to 16O (18O/16O = δ18O).

Take a look at the graph on the next page. It is a summary of the results of measurements taken on
the Vostok Ice Core. Here we have the calculated temperature (calculated using δ18O values), the
measurement of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, and the amount of dust in the atmosphere
from 400kya to present. Measurements were made at regular one meter intervals down the core.

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Exercise:

1) Does temperature show a positive or negative correlation with CO2 concentration? Why do
you think this is?
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_________________________________________________________________________(2)

2) What is the relationship between temperature and the amount of dust in the atmosphere?
Why do you think this is?
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3) Do the data show any cyclicity? That is, do warm periods and cold periods alternate with any
sort of regular frequency? Describe the pattern, if you see one.
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4) Describe the climatic and probable environmental conditions at 350 thousand years ago (ka).
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5) Why do you think that there are peaks in dust during glacial periods?
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Site Level Palaeoenvironmental Reconstructions
Soil (sediment) cores, their content and local environments
A significant environmental characteristic of soils is that they are the products of immediate,
localized and often, regional conditions. The physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of a soil
profile were determined by the parent material at that site, by the flora and fauna living at that site
and in the general region, and by the meteorological conditions (such as precipitation and
temperature) that operated on the site over time. Those that study hominin evolution, are
particularly interested in determining the local and regional environmental conditions in which
hominins lived in order to make sense of particular traits or features evident on hominin fossils.

Fossil plant and animal remains represent the biotic evidence that is often preserved in soils at
hominin sites and are often used as proxies to infer palaeoenvironmental conditions. The most
common types of plant fossils recovered as part of geoarchaeological investigations are pollen and
phytoliths. The animal fossil groups consist of vertebrates (e.g., mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish,
and birds) and invertebrates (e.g., insects, mollusks, and ostracods). The remains of antelope are
most often used to reconstruct hominin environments.

Pollen analysis

Pollen is produced by the males of cone-bearing and flowering plants as part of their reproduction
processes. Each species, or sub-species of plant, has a distinctive shape and structure to its pollen
grains, that can be seen under a microscope. This makes pollen useful for identifying the types of
plants that occur in an environment. Pollen grains can preserve for millions of years (under the
correct conditions) in soil. As such, they are of great use for reconstructing palaeoenvironments in
which hominins evolved.

Exercise:

Soil samples were taken from sediment cores incorporating layers A – D of a particular
archaeological site. Pollen grains were extracted and counted in order to build pollen profiles for
each layer and thus, reconstruct the dominant plant communities that existed during deposition of
each. The pollens of the following plant species were found in each layer:
Themeda triandra
Eragrostis sp
Digitaria argyrograpta
Occotea bullata
Podocarpus falcatus
Occotea bullata

Use internet resources to determine which of these are grasses found on savannas and
which are trees found in forests. Then, tally the totals in the last two columns.

Themeda Eragrostis sp Digitaria Ocotea Podocarpus Ficus % %

triandra argyrograpt bullata falcatus Burkei Grassland Woodland
a Species Species

Layer A 100 200 350 4 2 0

Layer B 20 40 30 10 6 0
Layer C 1 0 5 60 40 90
Layer D 0 0 0 40 56 70

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With Layer D being the oldest and Layer A the youngest, how did the plant community around the
site change through time?
________________________________________________________________________________(1)

Given what we know about the effect(s) of climatic conditions on environments, does the pollen
evidence record a shift from interglacial to glacial conditions, or glacial to interglacial conditions
through time?
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Faunal analysis

Another way to reconstruct past environments is to identify the types of animals found in fossil
assemblages. This is because different animals occupy different types of habitats. For example some
species may be adapted to wooded environments and eat leaves, while others may prefer to live in
more open grassland environments and eat grass. If you can identify the types of animals that used
to live in an area from fossil remains, you can deduce what type of vegetation most likely covered
the landscape. One way this is done is by calculating the % of grass adapted vs. the % of woodland
adapted species found in a layer.

Exercise:

The following table lists the numbers of bones identified of each of four species of African antelope
(that people were eating) in an archaeological site in Layers A, B C and D. Use internet resources to
determine the preferred food and environments of the antelope listed in the table.

Food Preferred environment

Kudu ________________________________________________
Bushbuck _____________________________________________
Hartebeest____________________________________________
Springbok_____________________________________________

Kudu Bushbuck Hartebeest Springbok

Layer A 135 105 55 32
Layer B 204 325 22 21
Layer C 10 15 55 24
Layer D 32 21 102 111

Now combine the two data sets above to determine the habitat that most likely dominated when
each layer was laid down (Grassland or Woodland).
Layer A___________________________________(1)
Layer B___________________________________(1)
Layer C___________________________________(1)
Layer D___________________________________(1)

Given what we know about the effect(s) of climatic conditions on environments, does the faunal
evidence record a shift from interglacial to glacial conditions, or glacial to interglacial conditions
through time? Layer D was laid down first, followed by layers C, B and A.

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Evolutionary Mechanisms
There are several key mechanisms that cause a population, a group of interacting organisms of a
single species, to exhibit a change in allele frequency from one generation to the next. These include
natural selection, mutation, genetic drift, founder effect, geneflow etc.

Exercise:

The diagram above depicts the same field of mice hunted by a hawk over three months. The overall
changes in the population can be explained best by which evolutionary mechanism?

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The diagram above depicts a population of butterflies before and after a fire. After the fire, the
existing population only has 50% of the original gene pool and the gene frequency is different. As
these butterflies reproduce, their offspring will no longer reflect the original population. This
situation is best explained by which evolutionary mechanism?

_____________________________________________________________________________(1)

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The diagram above depicts a sub-population of butterflies breaking off from the original population
to colonise a nearby island. As time goes on, this sub-population becomes isolated from the main
population which is still in existence in their original homeland. This situation is best explained by
which evolutionary mechanism?

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Stratigraphy
Stratigraphy is the result of what geologists and archaeologists refer to as the “process of
stratification”, or the process by which layers of soil and debris are laid down on top of one another
over time. The easiest way to think about stratigraphy is as if you were making lasagna: first you put
down the first layer of pasta, then cheese on top of that, then sauce, then another piece of pasta,
and so on. There is no way for you to put the bottom layer of pasta on before you put the sauce on,
and still maintain the same sequence or location of these different layers.This works the same way
for archaeology, and can be used to determine a sequence of events. This is what archaeologists and
geologists call the Law of Superposition. Simply put, where one layer overlies another, the lower
layer was deposited first. Of course, it is not always this simple because geology is dynamic and
layers that were once horizonal can end up vertical due to plate tectonics – the movement and
collisions of large plates of the Earth’s crust. In archaeological contexts, destructive agents, such as
animals and even humans, can disturb the original layering of sediments, making interpretation
difficult. For example, humans often excavated areas in caves for sleeping places. As such, they
might dig through hundreds or even thousands of years of deposited sediment layers. Once they’ve
dug their holes and left the area, these fill up with new sediments that are much younger than the
surrounding levels. For this reason, archaeologists and geologists need to be vigilant when “reading”
stratigraphies.

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Relative dating of deposited layers and fossils/artefact that they contain
Archaeologists, palaeontologists and geologists often use relative dating as a basic analytical technic.
Relative dating is the science of determining the relative order of past events (e.g. the age of an
geological layers relative to each other or the fossils contained in them), without necessarily
determining their absolute age (i.e. estimated age). Relative dating was widely used prior to the
discovery of radiometric dating, (which can provide an absolute or actual date) in the early 20th
century. Obviously, this was limiting because one could say that something was older than
something else, but you could not say by how much. Nevertheless, relative dating is still widely used
in archaeology, supported by radiometric dating techniques like radiocarbon dating.

Exercise:

Imagine a cave in which sediment has built up over tens of thousands of years. Below is a simplified
version of the strata (layers) making up the cave’s stratigraphic sequence.

 Use the principles of stratigraphy and common sense to determine the sequence of layers
oldest to youngest.

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TOTAL: 34