Terry Harrison

New York University, Anthropology, Emeritus

New York University, Center for the Study of Human Origins (CSHO), Faculty Member

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Terry Harrison is a biological anthropologist specializing in primate and human evolution, vertebrate paleontology, comparative morphology, and paleoecology. He has extensive paleontological fieldwork experience in Europe, East Africa, and Asia, and he is currently co-directing a major field project at the renowned early hominin site of Laetoli in northern Tanzania. He is also working on a number of different projects on fossil apes from the Miocene and Plio-Pleistocene of China and East Africa.
Address: Department of Anthropology
New York University
25 Waverly Place
New York, NY 10003, USA

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Laetoli, Tanzania: Extant terrestrial mollusc faunas shed new light on climate and palaeoecology at a Pliocene hominin site

PLoS ONE, 2024

Laetoli, Tanzania is one of the most important palaeontological and palaeoanthropological localit... more Laetoli, Tanzania is one of the most important palaeontological and palaeoanthropological localities in Africa. We report on a survey of the extant terrestrial gastropod faunas of the Laetoli-Endulen area, examine their ecological associations and reexamine the utility of Pliocene fossil molluscs in palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. Standardised collecting at 15 sites yielded 7302 individuals representing 58 mollusc species. Significant dissimilarities were found among the faunas of three broad habitat types: forest, woodland/bushland and open (grassland and scattered, xeric shrubland). Overall, more species were recorded in the woodland/bushland sites than in the forest sites. Open sites were less diverse. Environmental factors contributing most strongly to the separation of habitat types were aridity index and elevation. The results are supplemented with new mollusc data from the Mbulu Plateau south of Lake Eyasi, and compared to the list of species cumulatively recorded from the Ngorongoro area. Some regional variation is apparent and historical factors may explain the absence of some fossil taxa from Laetoli today. Differences in seasonality separated upland forest sites on the Mbulu plateau from those at Lemagurut at Laetoli. Indicator species were identified for each habitat. These included several large-bodied species analogous to the Laetoli Pliocene fossil species that were then used for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. Based on the estimated aridity index, and adopting the widely used United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) global climate classification, the four stratigraphic subunits of the Upper Laetolil Beds (3.6-3.85 Ma) would be placed in either the UNEP's Dry Sub-humid or Semi-arid climate classes, whereas the Upper Ndolanya Beds (2.66 Ma) and Lower Laetolil Beds (3.85-<4.36 Ma) would be assigned to the Humid and Semi-arid climate classes respectively. Pliocene precipitation at Laetoli is estimated as 847-965 mm per year, refining previous estimates. This is close or slightly higher than the present mean annual precipitation, and is likely to have corresponded to a mosaic of forest, woodland and bushland within a grassland matrix consistent with other reconstructions.

Terry Harrison

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