Paper short abstract:

In this paper we use case studies from eastern and southern Plio-Pleistocene Africa to consider how palaeoecological evidence from different scales is used to reconstruct human biological and technological evolution.

Paper long abstract:

Hominin ecology and behaviour is interpreted within a complex and often poorly resolved aggregation of data that includes records of large-scale global climate shifts, regional floral and faunal records, and highly localised records of, for example, sedimentology and pedology. Palaeoanthropologists ask a range of questions, on different geographical levels, so reconstructing the settings for human evolution and behaviour at an appropriate level requires understanding of the scope and scale of palaeoenvironmental data and methods, as well as conceptual and analytical tools to merge data at different scales when required. In this paper, we use examples and case studies from Plio-Pleistocene eastern and southern Africa to explore issues of palaeoecological scope and scale, and consider how studies acting at different scales may provide varying perspectives on the patterns and processes of human biological and technological evolution.