Event type:
Seminar, Virtual event
Organised by:
Pal(a)eo PERCS
Event status:
EVENT CLOSED
About Pal(a)eo PERCS
Pal(a)eo PERCS (Paleo EaRly Career Seminars) is a weekly seminar series that promotes and features work by early career researchers who are working in the broad field of “Pal(a)eo” sciences (e.g., -ntology, -ecology, -oceanography, -climate). PERCS is intended as a venue to share research, strengthen the global community, and facilitate collaboration between the Paleo sciences. All paleo- researchers and fans are enthusiastically welcome.
About this seminar
The Quaternary is known as “Age of Humans” because of the presence of abundant fossil record of Homo species in the geological records. The period has witnessed extraordinary changes in global climate, which resulted in the extinction of many mammalian species and must have controlled or contributed to the evolution of Homo species.
Although the fossil records of early Homo species are absent from the Indian subcontinent, varieties of stone tools unearthed from sedimentary deposits of the Quaternary age suggest the presence of tool-making prehistoric humans on the landscape.
Based on the study of excavated artefacts and their morphology, it has been suggested that the prehistoric humans of the Indian subcontinent were using the Paleolithic to Neolithic tools. The age of the prehistoric phase varies from global to regional scale and remains a matter of inquisitiveness. Therefore, it is required to have complete control over the age of prehistoric phases before understanding the role of climate on the Homo evolution.
In this direction, we selected the fluvial sections of the Belan valley situated in north-central India that preserved the signature of prehistoric human settlement from Paleolithic (~100 ka) to Neolithic (~3 ka) interval. For the first time, we conducted analyses of oxygen and carbon isotopes in soil carbonates (δ18OSC and δ13CSC) and compound-specific hydrogen and carbon isotopes in leaf wax n-alkanes (δDC29 andδ13CC29) of paleosol from six archaeological sites to understand the climate-cultural relationship.
The results suggest several phases of intensified monsoonal rainfall punctuated by drier episodes, which also partly controlled the vegetation composition in the last ~100 ka. Our study reveals the role of climate and vegetation in controlling the prehistoric population or local migration during the Middle Paleolithic to Early Neolithic phase.
The seminar will begin at 1.30pm UTC.
Speaker
Deepak Jha, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata, India
Registration
An access link will be emailed to all those subscribed to the mailing list prior to the seminar.
Venue
All seminars will be hosted via Zoom.
Accessibility
All Pal(a)eo PERCS seminars are closed captioned. If you require any other particular accessibility accommodations to be put in place, please do get in touch with the committee, who will be happy to accommodate those as best they can.
Contact
Please contact the Pal(a)eo PERCS steering committee via [email protected] with any enquiries.