HOMME Project – Human Origins in Mozambique and Malawi Environments (2019-2022)
An archaeological fieldwork project
In short
The HOMME Project (Human Origins in Mozambique and Malawi Environments) was funded by the CNRS as part of the 80-Prime Transversal and Interdisciplinary Initiatives project. In addition to UMR TRACES researchers, it benefits from a solid network of interdisciplinary collaborations involving geologists, geomorphologists, paleontologists, archaeologists, geophysicists, geochemists and geomaticians.
This project, built on ongoing work in South Africa and Mozambique, aims to identify features that could help to locate potential fossil sites, in the context of ancient karsts.
Why?
To date, two main regions in Africa are considered “cradle of humankind“, where fossiliferous sites yielded ancient hominins, including Australopithecus, Paranthropus and Homo, covering the period of appearance of the genus Homo: the Great East African Rift and the South African karsts. These two regions, separated by approximately 4000km, show a parallel but complementary recording of this long evolutionary process.
However, the region between the Great East African Rift and the South African karst remains little known meanwhile hominins most likely occupied this area. This lack of research represents an important scientific gap in understanding the distribution of Australopithecus and Paranthropus across the continent, as well as the relationships between these two species and their connection to the emergence of the genus Homo.
What?
The HOMME research program aims to identify new geological fossil traps, particularly focusing on karst systems, that may have preserved other pieces of the “Cradle of Humankind”.
In addition to the discovery of unique fossils, another objective of the HOMME project is to define the conservation procedures of fossil remains according to geomorphological contexts.
Map showing locations of the Great East African Rift (black lines) and the main plaeoanthropological sites found within it (red dots), as well as the main plaeoanthropological sites documented in Southern African karst systems (blue dots). Purple circles indicate location of current research programs (HON and HOMME). © L. Bruxelles
Where?
The programme focuses on the region between southern Malawi and northern Mozambique, which occupies a unique position at the crossroads of three major geological, geomorphological and bioclimatic domains: the southernmost part of the East African rift, the large areas of erosion that characterise much of the African continent, and the vast coastal plain along the Indian Ocean.
How?
The HOMME project crossed multi-scale approaches based on GIS, imagery, geology, land surveys, drone geophysics, palaeontology and archaeology. These approaches will allow the identification of the story and origins of karst traps, their geometry, the nature of the fillings, their dating, as well as the characterization of fossils and tools that can be found within them. The project carried out two missions, in 2019 and 2022, during which the team identified most karts in Mozambique and in Malawi.
Who?
The mission is led by Laurent Bruxelles (UMR 5608-TRACES, IFAS-Research), who has been leading other projects in the region such as Human Origins in Namibia. Various specialists are working on this mission, such as geologists (Philippe Vernant, Pierre Camps, Marcelino Moiana, Bastien Chadelle), geomorphologists (Laurent Bruxelles, Dominic Stratford and Gregory Dandurand), remote sensing specialists (Nicolas Poirier, François Baleux and Benjamin Lans), palaeontologists (Jean-Baptiste Fourvelle), paleoanthropologists (Amélie Baudet, Clément Zanolli).
Results
Preliminary results can be found in this article: Jean-Baptiste Fourvel, Amélie Beaudet, Clément Zanolli, Marcelino Moiana, Dominic Stratford, Bastien Chadelle, Laurent Bruxelles. 2022. “The HOMME project – Human Origins in Mozambique and Malawi Environments: looking for our origin in the Mozambican karst”. Karstologia Mémoires, 5 (25), pp.219-222. Available online: https://hal.science/hal-03916737v1/document