Issa Valley Project

Collaborators: Vicky M. Oelze (UC Santa Cruz),  Alex Piel, Fiona Stewart (UC London), A. Martínez-García (MPIC) and others

 

Stable isotope analysis provides an integrated record of dietary behavior over months to years and is a powerful tool for reconstructing feeding ecology, physiology, and environmental context in both modern and fossil animals. Because the behavior of extinct species cannot be directly observed, modern ecosystems offer essential reference frameworks for interpreting fossil isotope data and tracing evolutionary adaptations in diet and behavior. Such analogues are particularly valuable for understanding the ecology of hominins, as some modern primates share deep evolutionary histories and key physiological and ecological traits with early hominins.By understanding how δ¹⁵N_enamel, δ¹³C_enamel, and δ¹⁸O_enamel values vary with diet, trophic position, water sources, and physiological processes, we can interpret the isotopic niches of different taxa within their ecological and environmental contexts, using modern primates as analogs for reconstructing the dietary behavior of extinct hominids. To explore these relationships, we focused on the Issa Valley in western Tanzania, a savanna-woodland mosaic of open C₄-dominated habitats interspersed with C₃-rich riparian forest. Paleohabitat reconstructions suggest that such habitats resemble those inhabited by hominids during key periods in early human evolution making  the Issa Valley an ideal modern analog for investigating diet-environment interactions. Reconstructing hominid paleodiets requires integrated isotopic data for consumers and their environment.