Western Rift Archaeology and Palaeoenvironment Project

Introduction

Understanding the evolutionary journey of our species demands an exploration into the diverse environments that our earliest ancestors inhabited. This involves investigating the impact that these landscapes had on the cultural and biological adaptations of early Homo. The Western Rift Archaeological and Paleoenvironment (WRAP) Project directly addresses this important topic by answering the question: How and when did Homo ergaster adapt to the diverse ecotone environments of the Western Rift compared to the more open mosaic environments of the East African Rift?

Historical Context

While historically, the unique adaptability of early Homo has been linked to open savanna grasslands, recent studies challenge this notion. These studies propose that a broader range of environments influenced their adaptive flexibility. However, these hypotheses heavily rely on geographically limited research areas biased toward mosaic open grassland landscapes in Eastern and Southern Africa.

The Albertine Rift

Beyond these historically well-studied regions lies the Albertine Rift in Uganda, a unique biodiversity hotspot and ecological ecotone between Central African tropical forests and East African savannah grasslands. During the Pleistocene, although increasingly arid, this region possessed a similar diverse range of tropical humid environments as today.

Project Objectives

Recognizing the need to search beyond the intensively studied ecologically similar regions of Eastern and Southern Africa, this innovative project will:

1. Conduct extensive fieldwork to identify new archaeological sites within the Western Rift of Uganda.
2. Utilize systematic surveys and targeted excavations.
3. Employ cutting-edge remote sensing, biomolecular, and geochronological analyses.

Through these efforts, the WRAP Project will, for the first time, provide a holistic understanding of Pleistocene hominin occupations and behavior across the Western Rift's diverse biomes.