Paleoanthropology

Professor Howell, jointly with Professor T.D. White, co-directs the Laboratory for Human Evolutionary Studies (L.H.E.S.). The Laboratory recently took occupancy of a suite of offices and laboratories in the newly renovated Valley Life Sciences Building (VLSB) housing the Department of Integrative Biology and several associated museum/ORU complexes.

In February '94, Dr. Howell was a participant in the symposium, Calibrating Human History, at the (160th) annual meeting of the AAAS in San Francisco. He and F.H. Brown (U. of Utah) jointly presented the paper. Geochronology and Paleoanthropology: relevance for hominid evolutionary studies, an overview.

In October '94 he was an invited commentator/moderator at a conference presentation on recent ancient hominid finds at Atapuerca (Spain), in the Gran Dolina locality, at the invitation of the Consejo Superior des Investigaciones Cientificas, and held at the Residencia del Estudiantes, C.S.I.C. (Madrid).

In the first half of January '95 he carried out analytical comparative studies of fossil carnivore collections from the basin of the Middle Awash (Ethiopia) at the National Museum, Addis Ababa. This continuing research effort was at the invitation of Prof. T.D. White and associates of the Middle Awash Paleoanthropological Research Project (MAPRP) and was occasioned by the discovery of the new hominid taxon, Ardipithicus ramidus.

In early July '95 Prof. Howell was an invited participant in the Curso de Varano, sponsored annually by the Universidad Complutense (Madrid), and held at El Escorial, near Madrid. He lectured in the curso, Registros Fosiles e Historia de la Tierra. In early September he was a member of the scientific organizing committee and invited participant/speaker in the Congreso Internacional de Paleontologia Humana - Los Hominidos y su Entorno en el Pleistoceno inferior y medio Europeo, held at Orce (Spain). In late November he was an invited participant and keynote speaker at the international symposium, Neanderthals and Modren Humans in West Asia, held at University Museum/University of Tokyo (Japan).

In summer 1994 field research continued at the locality of Dursunlu (konya basin) near Llgin (Turkey). This is a joint effort between L.H.E.S. and the Turkish Geological Survey and the University of Ankara. Prof. Howell was unable to participate personally due to a bout of minor surgery, and Prof. T.D. White again represented L.H.E.S. The fossil and archaeological samples from this locality were increased substantially from rigorous, intensive surface collection efforts. Limited overburden removal with power equipment clarified the stratigraphic context and confirmed fossil occurrences in one of two lignite horizons (upper) and in underlying reddish pebbly sands (lower). Extensive flooding from artesian waters and the extensive overburden make impractical any effort to excavate this locality on a controlled basis. In October two cores were recovered in and adjacent to the locality, extending 45-51 m. to underlying bedrock. They demonstrate a former lacustrine or lake-margin environment, apparently shallowing upwards in time, and will afford both sedimentary and palynological evidence for the former setting and environment of the locality. Preliminary results of paleomagnetic sampling, undertaken by Dr. Garniss Curtis and associates (BGC, Berkeley), suggests a largely if not wholly reversed succession, and hence in confirmative (as is the mammal fauna) of an age within the (upper) Matuyama (R) chron, >0.78 ma., and even probably upwards of 1.0 ma. Dursunlu thus represents the oldest such locality as yet documented in Anatolia, and encourages one to believe that other such occurrences might exist in more accessible, and hence excavatable circumstances. Further efforts of Paleoanthropological survey will be directed towards this end.

Recent Publications

Thoughts on Eugene DuBois and the 'Pithecanthropus' saga. Centenary of the discovery of Pithecanthropus erectus DuBois-The Homo erectus problem. December 1991. Courier Forchungsinstitut Senckenberg, Frankfurt/M., 171:11-20. 1994.

Vertebrate remains and Acheulean industry from the lower occupation at the Ambrona prehistoric site (Spain). Jahrbuch des Romisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Mainz, 39:1-42. 1994.

Last modified 5 November 1999.