Dietary and environmental reconstruction with stable isotope analyses of herbivore tooth enamel from the Miocene locality of Fort Ternan, Kenya |
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| Authors: | Thure E Cerling John M Harris Stanley H Ambrose Meave G Leakey Nikos Solounias |
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| Institution: | aDepartment of Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84103, U.S.A.;bGeorge C. Page Museum, 5801 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, California, 90036, U.S.A.;cDepartment of Anthropology, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, 61801, U.S.A.;dThe National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya;eDepartment of Anatomy, New York Institute of Technology, Old Westbury, New York, 11568, U.S.A. |
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| Abstract: | Tooth enamel of nine Middle Miocene mammalian herbivores from Fort Ternan, Kenya, was analyzed for δ13C and δ18O. The δ18O values of the tooth enamel compared with pedogenic and diagenetic carbonate confirm the use of stable isotope analysis of fossil tooth enamel as a paleoenvironmental indicator. Furthermore, the δ18O of tooth enamel indicates differences in water sources between some of the mammals. The δ13C values of tooth enamel ranged from −8·6–−13·0‰ which is compatible with a pure C3diet, though the possibility of a small C4fraction in the diet of a few of the specimens sampled is not precluded. The carbon isotopic data do not support environmental reconstructions of a Serengeti-typed wooded grassland with a significant proportion of C4grasses. This study does not preclude the presence of C3grasses at Fort Ternan; it is possible that C3grasses could have had a wider geographic range if atmospheric CO2levels were higher than the present values. |
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| Keywords: | carbon isotopes photosynthetic pathway Miocene diet enamel Fort Ternan Kenya |
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