Mercader Julio, Clarke Siobhán, Bundala Mariam, Favreau Julien, Inwood Jamie, Itambu Makarius, Larter Fergus, Lee Patrick, Lewiski-McQuaid Garnet, Mollel Neduvoto, Mwambwiga Aloyce, Patalano Robert, Soto María, Tucker Laura, Walde Dale
Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada.
Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany.
PeerJ. 2019 Dec 11;7:e8211. doi: 10.7717/peerj.8211. eCollection 2019.
This article studies soil and plant phytoliths from the Eastern Serengeti Plains, specifically the mosaics from Oldupai Gorge, Tanzania, as present-day analogue for the environment that was contemporaneous with the emergence of the genus . We investigate whether phytolith assemblages from recent soil surfaces reflect plant community structure and composition with fidelity. The materials included 35 topsoil samples and 29 plant species (20 genera, 15 families). Phytoliths were extracted from both soil and botanical samples. Quantification aimed at discovering relationships amongst the soil and plant phytoliths relative distributions through Chi-square independence tests, establishing the statistical significance of the relationship between categorical variables within the two populations. Soil assemblages form a spectrum, or cohort of co-ocurring phytolith classes, that will allow identifying environments similar to those in the - ecozone in the fossil record.
本文研究了东塞伦盖蒂平原的土壤和植物植硅体，特别是坦桑尼亚奥杜威峡谷的镶嵌体，将其作为与该属出现同期的环境的现代类似物。我们调查了近期土壤表面的植硅体组合是否能如实地反映植物群落结构和组成。材料包括35个表层土壤样本和29种植物（20属，15科）。从土壤和植物样本中提取了植硅体。量化旨在通过卡方独立性检验发现土壤和植物植硅体相对分布之间的关系，确定这两个群体中分类变量之间关系的统计显著性。土壤组合形成了一个光谱，或一组同时出现的植硅体类别，这将有助于识别与化石记录中该生态区类似的环境。
