Describing the Great Rift Valley

I share some geological and geographical knowledge from the Omo River valley, one part of the African Rift system.

24 Jun 2014 — 1 min read

John Hawks near the Omo River, Ethiopia

I visited the Omo River of southern Ethiopia in 2014. This is an amazing region for fossil hominin discoveries, with fossil material spanning from the Pliocene through the Late Pleistocene. The area is the northernmost part of the Turkana Basin, a key place in the African Rift system.

I took the opportunity to give a quick overview of the geology of the Rift and why it is such a good place for the preservation and discovery of fossil hominins.

Human Evolution: Past and Future geology Video by John Hawks

John Hawks Twitter

I'm a paleoanthropologist exploring the world of ancient humans and our fossil relatives.

Lecture: Finding ancient minds in the human evolutionary tree

Insights into the behavioral capabilities of ancient human relatives are beginning to show that some of the abilities we consider human go surprisingly deep in our ancestry.