Josephine Joordens

• Prof. Dr.
• Senior Researcher at Naturalis Biodiversity Center

The manufacture of geometric engravings is generally interpreted as indicative of modern cognition and behaviour. Key questions in the debate on the origin of such behaviour are whether this innovation is restricted to Homo sapiens, and whether it has a uniquely African origin. Here we report on a fossil freshwater shell assemblage from the Hauptkn...

The influence of climate change on hominin evolution is much debated. Two issues hamper our understanding of this process: the limited hominin fossil record, and incomplete knowledge about hominin spatial occupation of Africa. Here, we analyze the presently known hominin fossil distribution pattern and explore the potential geographic distribution...

Trinil (Java, Indonesia) yielded the type fossils of Homo erectus and the world's oldest hominin-made engraving. As such, the site is of iconic relevance for paleoanthropology. However, our understanding of its larger geological context is unsatisfactory. Previous sedimentological studies are around 100 years old and their interpretations sometimes...

Today, the eastern African hydroclimate is tightly linked to fluctuations in the zonal atmospheric Walker circulation1,2. A growing body of evidence indicates that this circulation shaped hydroclimatic conditions in the Indian Ocean region also on much longer, glacial–interglacial timescales3–5, following the development of Pacific Walker circulati...

Islands of the western part of the Indonesian archipelago were impacted by climatic and sea level changes during Pleistocene, which affected the dispersals and/or isolation of hominins in this region. This study aims to characterize the diversity of ancient human populations in the Sundaland based on dental collections from several localities in Su...

Human remains dating back to the Early and Middle Holocene in the western Indonesian archipelago are mostly found in habitat and burial sites such as caves and rock shelters at the Southern and Northern mountains of Java, Southern and Western mountains of Sumatra [1], or in sites reflecting human activities like shell midden on the Eastern coast of...

https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Vkvd6fS6-GUKK

Sedimentary strata at Kaitio, in the West Turkana region of northern Kenya, document a dynamic lake margin from the Early Pleistocene. Environmental records preserved in these deposits hold clues to the climatic fluctuations and landscape dynamics that influenced early human evolution during a time from 1.9 to 1.3 Ma. Outcrops along the sand-bed ep...

Recent discoveries from Pakefield and Happisburgh (Britain) have provided clear evidence for an unexpectedly early hominin occupation of north-west Europe. The sites, found in the deposits of interglacial rivers and estuaries on the southern rim of the ancient North Sea coast, span the older and younger parts of the ‘Cromerian Complex’ Stage. The o...

Evolutionary medicine acknowledges that many chronic degenerative diseases result from conflicts between our rapidly changing environment, our dietary habits included, and our genome, which has remained virtually unchanged since the Palaeolithic era. Reconstruction of the diet before the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions is therefore indicate...

Understanding the influence of orbital climate cycles on hominin evolution remains a key challenge in paleoanthropology. The two major unresolved issues are: the absence of a climate proxy yielding high-resolution (b 20 kyr) terrestrial climate records, and the lack of age control on hominin fossil occurrences at sufficiently high resolution. Here...

The sediments of the Slindon Formation at the junction of the Chalk South Downs and the West Sussex Coastal Plain, as revealed and studied at Boxgrove, contain evidence for early Middle Pleistocene environments in southern England around half a million years ago. The archaeological importance of the deposits is attested to by the recovery of stone...

Knowledge about dietary niche is key to understanding hominin evolution, since diet influences body proportions, brain size, cognition, and habitat preference. In this study we provide ecological context for the current debate on modernity (or not) of aquatic resource exploitation by hominins. We use the Homo erectus site of Trinil as a case study...

Climate change is hypothesized as a cause of major events of Plio-Pleistocene East African hominin evolution, but the vertically discontinuous and laterally confined nature of the relevant geological records has led to difficulties with assessing probable links between the two. High-resolution sedimentary sequences from lacustrine settings can prov...

We studied the diet of Brycinus sadleri in Lake Victoria after extensive environmental changes during the 1980s. To check for diet expansion following these changes, as observed in some other fish species, we compared our results with data from the 1950s. Stomach contents were analysed in relation to fish size and time of the day to investigate ont...

In a previous issue of AJHB, Carlson and Kingston ([2007]: Am J Hum Biol 19:132-141) raised the question whether modern humans need preformed docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) from the aquatic food chain in their diet. The authors concluded that at the moment, there is not sufficient hard evidence to answer this scientific question in a positive way. In o...

According to Stokes’ law, colony formation in phytoplankton would lead to enhanced sinking rates and higher sedimentation losses if colonies had the same densities as the phytoplankton cells they contain. In the Dutch coastal zone of the North Sea, algae settling out of the water column are subject to zoobenthos grazing or to physical mixing into t...

To study the short-term effects of the physical environment on phytoplankton dynamics in the Rhine outflow area, changes in salinity, beam attenuation and phytoplankton distribution were observed in a series of high resolution measurements. During periods of weak wind and neap tide (low turbulent kinetic energy, TKE), the system was dominated by ti...

The proportion of ripe females of the characid fish 'Brycinus sadleri' in the Mwanza Gulf of Lake Victoria remained at a constant level of 43% throughout 1987. This disagrees with the supposed anadromous breeding of the species, which implies spawning during the rainy season. In addition, the highest proportions of ripe females were found in relati...

Communication between scientific disciplines related to coastal management is difficult but essential. Different views on the role of science in coastal management were key elements of many discussions at the conference. In this personal impression the author looks back and reflects on the arguments which participants with different scientific back...

The Dutch Delta Region (S-W Netherlands) originally consisted of interconnected estuaries, interfacing the rivers Rhine, Meuse and Schelde with the North Sea. The ecosystems were immature, with physical rather than biological control of population dynamics. Main functions were shipping and shellfisheries. An emergent function of the interconnected...

A widespread hypothesis is that man-induced eutrophication, an increase in nitrogen and/or phosphorus rather than silicon, gives a competitive advantage to the non-silicon using flagellates against the silicon dependent diatoms. Some authors suggest that such a mechanism could explain the intensification of the Phaeocystis blooms observed in the la...

In the area between the 30 and 40 m isobaths, just north of the Netherlands, a transition from Channel water to central North Sea water is found. Observations obtained in May and June 1986 show a predominantly along-isobath directed sub-tidal current. In the vertical cross-isobath plane a quasi-permanent upwelling zone overlying the steepest bottom...