The Biogeographic Implications of Early Hominin Phylogeny

Abstract

The biogeographic implications of early hominin phylogeny were investigated using cladistic analysis. Geography was treated as a cladistic character with three states (eastern, southern and central Africa). The geography character was plotted onto a cladogram derived from a recent study of early hominin phylogeny, and each change in character state was interpreted as a dispersal event. Results indicate that hominins dispersed at least four times between African regions, and that most hominin speciation events took place in eastern Africa. Many adaptively significant morphologies also evolved in eastern Africa, although the possibility exists that bipedalism originated in central Africa.