Content uploaded by René Bobe
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by René Bobe
Content may be subject to copyright.
BOX 1: The Turkana Database: An Archive Of Vertebrate Evolution In East Africa
After more than four decades
of paleontological and geological
research, the Turkana Basin has
become one of the preeminent places
to study the ecological and environ-
mental context of early human evolu-
tion. To strengthen and enhance
continuing research on human ori-
gins, it is important that the wealth
of paleobiological information from
the Turkana Basin be readily avail-
able to the scientific community and
to the public at large, beyond publi-
cations in specialized journals and
comprehensive monographs. Publicly
available databases have become
standard tools in scientific research
in many areas of study, including,
for example, the field of genomics,
and paleoanthropology is no excep-
tion. In a partnership between the
National Museums of Kenya and the
Smithsonian Institution, we have
established a ‘‘living’’ faunal database
that can serve as a powerful and sus-
tainable tool in the analysis of paleo-
ecological patterns and faunal change
in the context of human evolution.
The Turkana Database is a speci-
men-based compilation of fossil
vertebrates from the Turkana
Basin of Kenya. This contrasts
with other database structures that
provide lists of taxa by locality or
collection (for example, species
occurrences), such as the Paleobi-
ology Database (PBDB, http://
www.paleodb.org/cgi-bin/bridge.pl),
the Eurasian NOW Database
(http://www.helsinki.fi/science/now/),
and the Smithsonian’s Human
Origins Program Database. The
Paleobiology Database includes tax-
onomic occurrence records for the
East African Mio-Pleistocene fauna
originally captured by the Evolu-
tion of Terrestrial Ecosystems
(ETE) database.
100,103
The Turkana
Database contains searchable infor-
mation about all published speci-
mens from Lothagam (Nawata and
Nachukui formations), Kanapoi
(Kanapoi Formation), West Tur-
kana (Nachukui Formation), and
East Turkana (Koobi Fora Forma-
tion). The specimens date from the
Late Miocene to the Early Pleisto-
cene; that is, from about 7.5 mil-
lion years ago to about 1.4 million
years ago. The fossils and the in-
formation they contain represent
tens of thousands of hours devoted
to searching, collecting, catalogu-
ing, and conserving by hundreds
of researchers and skilled techni-
cians since the mid-1960s. Cur-
rently, the public version of the
database has more than 13,500
records from 28 mammalian fami-
lies. It will continue to grow as
new publications appear. There are
34 fields in the public database,
with each field providing, along
with other contextual information,
basic information about a fossil
specimen: museum accession num-
ber, associated specimens, geo-
graphical location of the site, strat-
igraphic information, taxonomic
designation, skeletal part, and
degree of completeness. The parent
Turkana Database contains both
published and unpublished speci-
mens, currently totaling about
17,000 records; access to unpub-
lished information requires permis-
sion from the Palaeontology Division
at the National Museums of Kenya.
The Turkana Database was
designed as a research tool, and it
has been used for this purpose in
peer-reviewed publications as well
as dissertations and student proj-
ects. It has also become a valuable
tool for curators at the National
Museums of Kenya (NMK) and for
researchers visiting the vast verte-
brate paleontology collections at the
museum. Scholars who conduct
research at NMK can easily locate
specimens of interest and find
appropriate comparative collections.
Scholars who are planning to visit
NMK can get exact numbers and
locations of specimens they wish to
study before they travel, and thus
can plan their work ahead of time.
The public database can be accessed
through the National Museums of
Kenya, Earth Sciences Department
(Palaeontology Division), and the
Smithsonian Institution’s Evolution of
Terrestrial Ecosystems web pages:
http://www.museums.or.ke/ and http://
www.mnh.si.edu/ete/ETE_Datasets_
Turkana.html.
There are several aspects of the
current database and data quality
that we plan to improve in the near
future. First, some of the specimens
were originally collected with rela-
tively broad stratigraphic prove-
nience data (at the level of geological
members), even though the geo-
graphic origin of the specimens is
known with meter-level accuracy
and precision. We plan to reassign
specimens with well-known geo-
graphic provenience records to
updated geological subunits within
known geological members. Second,
some of the taxonomic identifica-
tions of Turkana Basin fossils have
not been revised or updated since
they were first published two or
three decades ago. The recent publi-
cation of a volume on African mam-
mal evolution provides renewed
impetus to update these records and
bring them into the current taxo-
nomic framework for African paleo-
faunas.
104
Third, some of the non-
mammalian taxa have not been well
studied and require thorough
reevaluation, although there are
some notable exceptions, such as
the fossil fishes from Kanapoi and
Lothagam. In future versions of the
database, we plan to include all verte-
brate fossils, not just mammals. With
refined stratigraphic provenience,
updated taxonomy, and inclusion of
all fossil vertebrates, we also will
include in the database a range of
new ecomorphological and paleoeco-
logical data derived from the fossils.
Currently there is no single source of
paleoecological information of Tur-
kana Basin fossils. These data can be
easily incorporated into the structure
of the Turkana Database (fields for
measurements and interpretations,
such as grazer, browser, mixed
feeder). The database will continue to
be maintained by the National Muse-
ums of Kenya and the Smithsonian
Institution.
Rene´ Bobe
Anna K. Behrensmeyer
Meave G. Leakey
Emma Mbua
256 Rene
´Bobe ARTICLES