The palaeoecological context of the Oldowan-Acheulean in southern Africa

The influence of climatic and environmental change on human evolution in the Pleistocene epoch is understood largely from extensive East African stable isotope records. These records show increasing proportions of C₄ plants in the Early Pleistocene. We know far less about the expansion of C₄ grasses at higher latitudes, which were also occupied by early Homo but are more marginal for C₄ plants. Here we show that both C₃ and C₄ grasses and prolonged wetlands remained major components of Early Pleistocene environments in the central interior of southern Africa, based on enamel stable carbon and oxygen isotope data and associated faunal abundance and phytolith evidence from the site of Wonderwerk Cave. Vegetation contexts associated with Oldowan and early Acheulean lithic industries, in which climate is driven by an interplay of regional rainfall seasonality together with global CO₂ levels, develop along a regional distinct trajectory compared to eastern South Africa and East Africa.