Hadar

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Hadar in northern East Africa

Hadar (in the Afar language Ahdi d'ar , literally: "Treaty of the River") is a landscape in northern East Africa on the Awash River in the Ethiopian Afar Triangle , which is characterized by inhospitable " badlands ". The hilly terrain , characterized by erosion phenomena , consists mainly of various loose rocks , namely sand , silt and volcanic ash .

Numerous fossils have been discovered on the steep slopes to the Awash and other lowlands . The absolute age of the fossils can be determined quite precisely , as volcanic eruptions have often occurred in this region in the geological past and the ash layers formed can be used as time markers. For example, the ash layers at the site of the pre-human fossil " Lucy " (3.2 mya ), discovered by Donald Johanson in 1974 , can be dated to an age of 3.4 mya, 3.22 mya and 3.18 mya, and the fossils embedded in between are accordingly an age that lies between that of the ash layers.

In the vicinity of Hadar numerous other hominid fossils were found, including the fossil AL 129-1 (a knee joint, 3.4 mya), Ardi (a female Ardipithecus ramidus , 4.4 mya) as well as that in particular at the Dikika site Well-preserved fossil DIK 1-1 (a very well-preserved young female Australopithecus afarensis , 3.3 mya), as well as the oldest stone tools discovered to date . The area is therefore considered to be one of the birthplaces of mankind .

See also

literature

  • The Hadar Group: Pliocene Hominid Fossils from Hadar, Ethiopia. In: American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Special issue. Volume 57, No. 4, 1982, pp. 373-719, table of contents
  • Donald Johanson et al. (Ed.): Pliocene hominid fossils from Hadar, Ethiopia. In: American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Volume 57, No. 4, 1982, pp. 373-719, doi: 10.1002 / ajpa.1330570402
  • Jon Kalb : Adventures in the Bone Trade. The Race to Discover Human Ancestors in Ethiopis's Afar Depression. Copernicus Books, New York 2001, ISBN 0-387-98742-8
  • James L. Aronson, Million Hailemichael and Samuel M. Savin: Hominid environments at Hadar from paleosol studies in a framework of Ethiopian climate change. In: Journal of Human Evolution. Volume 55, No. 4, 2008, pp. 532-550, doi: 10.1016 / j.jhevol.2008.04.004

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