Eastern Africa’s coastal forests and hominin origins - Livestream

The coastal forests of eastern Africa constitute a biodiversity hotspot, and may have played a central role in hominin origins. But the evolutionary history of this biogeographic realm remains poorly known because of a sparse fossil record. Here we present the first paleontological evidence of eastern Africa’s coastal forests and aim to answer the question: what role did these forests play in generating Africa’s biodiversity including the origin of our own clade, the Hominini? Our team has discovered a series of new fossil sites in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, which shed new light on African evolution during the Miocene epoch. The emerging fossil record from Gorongosa includes new mammalian species and a rich record of fossil plants. The evidence suggests that the relative isolation of the eastern regions acted as an engine of evolutionary change for millions of years.

Speaker: Rene Bobe, Leakey Foundation Gordon Getty Award Laureate

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