John Kingston
University of Michigan, MI·Earth & Environmental Science
What kind of world were our earliest ancestors living in when the human lineage split from the apes? The landscapes and climates of that time likely shaped which traits were favored as hominins (the human branch of the family tree) emerged.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Ecology & Evolution
- Topics
paleoanthropology
human evolution
hominin origins
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2028
What they work on
- Reconstruct the environments surrounding the ape–hominin divergence through systematic analysis of fossil vertebrate collections together with phytolith, pollen and n-alkane plant records.
- Build a detailed chronostratigraphy, a dated sequence of sedimentary rock layers, and interpret those formations to refine the timeline of environmental change.
- Infer the diets and habitats of fossil herbivores from their teeth, using dental microwear and stable isotope analysis.
- Integrate spatial information about fossil sites and rock formations using AI-generated algorithms.
More about the research
Reconstructing those environments helps explain the selective forces behind human origins.
Why it matters
This work adds basic understanding of the environments in which the ape and hominin lineages diverged. A dated, multi-proxy picture of past landscapes could clarify which environmental pressures favored the emergence of the human lineage, informing scientists and the public about human evolution.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Erin DiMaggio
Pennsylvania State University, PA·Earth & Environmental Science
Recover fossils from 6-million-year-old sites to document the animals that lived around the time the human lineage emerged.
Deming Yang
Midwestern University-Downers Grove, IL·Ecology & Evolution
Recover fossils from rare 6-million-year-old paleontological sites to document the animal communities present when the human lineage first emerged.
Felisa Smith
University of New Mexico, NM·Ecology & Evolution
Reconstruct diets of extinct and surviving mammals on Texas's Edwards Plateau over the past 20,000 years, using stable isotope analysis of collagen preserved in fossil bones.
The school
University of Michigan: 124 labs on PI Pages, $2.1B a year on research, 963 research doctorates a year.
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