Abstract
The period from 2.5 to 1 million years ago (Ma) is critical, as it corresponds to a major shift in hominin evolution in East Africa, when Australopithecus was replaced by the taxa Paranthropus and Homo and when, since the beginning of the Pleistocene, the Earth's average surface temperature has become colder and the global climate more unstable, resulting in more open ecosystems and the f…