From Newsgroup: sci.anthropology.paleo


Definitely a long paper. Did skip to the
conclusion

"...The goal of this paper was to compile a
complete and comprehensive catalog of the
hominin fossils from the Omo-Turkana Basin
and to analyze the geographical, temporal,
taphonomic, and taxonomic patterns in the
dataset... we can now estimate that the basin
accounts for roughly 1/3 of the total African
hominin record between 7 and 0.78 Ma. Of
course, the exact proportion will not be
known until we have compiled a complete
catalog of the entire African hominin fossil
record. This paper marks a major milestone
toward that goal."




https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248425000843
The hominin fossil record of the
Omo-Turkana Basin

Abstract
The Omo-Turkana Basin is one of three major
regions for the study of hominin evolution in
Africa. It has yielded a rich hominin fossil
record of 1231 specimens, around a third of
the record for the whole of Africa for the
period from the Messinian through the
Calabrian. Here, we consider the fossil
hominin record of the Omo-Turkana Basin as an
object of study in its own right and show the
contribution that an analysis of such an
exhaustive record can make. The data come from
117 publications allowing the most complete,
accurate, and up-to-date synthesis of this
record. Our analysis provides a quantitative
perspective on the biases affecting this record,
such as skeletal element abundance
representation, chronostratigraphic
distribution, and difficulties in taxonomic
assignment. It also provides historical
perspective, illustrating the major
contribution made by the Omo-Turkana hominin
fossil record to our knowledge of human
evolution. We provide a synthetic overview of
the taxa represented and discuss the
chronological distribution of taxonomic groups
in the basin including the relative abundance
of Paranthropus and Homo (2/3 and 1/3,
respectively) during their long period of
coexistence. Integrating the data makes it
possible to address difficult questions that
have been underinvestigated until now. For
example, contrary to the prevailing view, the
genus Homo is well represented in the
Omo-Turkana Basin between 2.7 and 2 Ma.
Additionally, we show that the hominin fossil
record of the Upper Burgi and KBS Members is
atypical, both in terms of skeletal element
abundance and taxonomy. Neither
paleoenvironments nor taphonomic or collecting
biases can fully explain this anomaly.

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2