Areas of Research/Interest

Archaeological and geological methods to explore the behavioral evolution of Middle and Later Pleistocene hominins and the origin of Homo sapiens.

Affiliated with other departments or programs

The Center for the Study of Human Origins

Publications

Tryon, C.A.; Pobiner, B.; Kauffman, R. (in press) Archaeology and Human Evolution. Evolution: Education and Outreach.

Tryon, C.A. (in press) Alternative explanations for early hominin non-utilitarian behavior at Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa. Journal of Taphonomy.

Tryon, C.A. (2010) How the geological record affects our reconstructions of Middle Stone Age settlement patterns: The case of alluvial fans in Baringo, Kenya. In (N. Conard & A. Delagnes, eds.) Settlement Dynamics of the Middle Paleolithic & Middle Stone Age, Volume III. Tübingen: Kerns Verlag, pp. 39-66.

Tryon, C.A.; Logan, M.A.V.; Mouralis, D.; Kuhn, S.L.; Slimak, L.; Balkan-Atli, N. (2009) Building a tephrostratigraphic framework for the Paleolithic of Central Anatolia, Turkey. Journal of Archaeological Science 36: 637-652.

Tryon, C.A.; Roach, N.T.; Logan, M.A.V. (2008) The Middle Stone Age of the northern Kenyan Rift: Age and context of new archaeological sites from the Kapedo Tuffs. Journal of Human Evolution 55: 652-664.

Tryon, C.A. (2006) ‘Early’ Middle Stone Age lithic technology of the Kapthurin Formation (Kenya). Current Anthropology 47: 367-375.

Tryon, C.A. & McBrearty, S. (2006) Tephrostratigraphy of the Bedded Tuff Member (Kapthurin Formation, Kenya) and the nature of archaeological change in the later Middle Pleistocene. Quaternary Research 65:492-507.

Tryon, C.A. (2006)Investigating the destructive potential of earthworms for the archaeobotanical record. Journal of Field Archaeology 31:199-202.

Tryon, C.A., McBrearty, S. & Texier, P.-J. (2005)Levallois lithic technology from the Kapthurin Formation, Kenya: Acheulian origin and Middle Stone Age diversity. African Archaeological Review 22:199-229.

Tryon, C.A. & McBrearty, S. (2002)  Tephrostratigraphy and the Acheulian to Middle Stone Age transition in the Kapthurin Formation, Kenya. Journal of Human Evolution 42:211-235.

Current News / Projects
Updated August 2011

Conferences and workshops
Since last summer, I’ve attended the Paleoanthropology Society meetings in Minneapolis and the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meetings in Pittsburgh, and presented the results of ongoing fieldwork from Equatorial Africa.  I’ve just finished co-organizing a session at the upcoming Geological Society of America meetings called “Paleoclimate, Terrestrial Ecosystems, and Human Evolution in Africa from the Pleistocene to the Present.”

I was also fortunate enough to be invited to participate in a UNESCO-sponsored workshop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia called African human origin sites and the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, where I focused on the role of geology and archaeology (particularly stone tools) in the promotion and conservation of African heritage related to human evolution.

Teaching, education, academic service
I’ve continued to refine my teaching, and had the opportunity to teach two courses for the first time.  The first was a wonderful opportunity to work with senior undergraduates to develop their honors theses, and the second a graduate course called Technology and Society, which was fun but took a lot of effort!

While in Kenya, I helped to develop an exhibit for the Abasuba Community Peace Museum of Mfangano on the local prehistory of the islands of eastern Lake Victoria.  I developed a large poster that will form part of an educational series that will travel to regional primary and secondary schools.

My continued service as an associate editor of the Journal of Human Evolution has remained an interesting, challenging, and often eye-opening experience.

Research
My research efforts have been focused in a couple of different directions over the last year.  I’ve continued analyses of volcanic ash deposits from important Middle Paleolithic (Neanderthal?) sites from Turkey, and have been trying to apply some novel means of using digital image analysis to determine the geological source of stone tools from an archaeological site in Connecticut. 

However, most of my research and all of my fieldwork this year has focused on Pleistocene (~33,000-100,000-year old) sites on and near of the shores of Lake Victoria, Kenya.  This work has proven really exciting, in part because of what we’re finding in the ground and in part because I am lucky enough to work with a fantastic group of student and faculty collaborators.

We’re finding lots of fossils of extinct animals (like the curiously named Rusingoryx atopocranion) and animals that indicate a very dry, open grassland very much unlike the environment of today.  Interestingly, these fossils co-occur with Middle Stone Age artifacts (the kind found with the earliest Homo sapiens).  This year, we excavated what may be a mass-death assemblage of Rusingoryx atopocranion that may have resulted from flooding; nearby stone tools and cut-marked bones suggest a potentially very interesting butchery site.  Only continued analysis will tell.

Lastly, we studied ancient beach deposits 18 meters above the current level of Lake Victoria, indicating a time when the lake was much deeper and larger than the present.  We’re currently working on determining the age of this deposit.  Many of the African lakes are excellent recorders of past climates, but much of the early history of Lake Victoria and its contribution to understanding global patterns of climate change still remains poorly understood and undated.