august

The metabolomic research project stoichy goes online, providing the most sensitive analysis services for all water types to the public.

OCTOBER

Start of the Southern Caucasus Field Project

Oliver Sandrock, Ottmar Kullmer, Timothy G. Bromage
Friedemann Schrenk, Angela Bruch

FEBRUARY

Beginning of the Metabolic Ecology Field Project

Timothy G.  Bromage, Friedemann Schrenk,

Melanie Bäuchle, Annett Junginger

summer

Friedemann Schrenck, Ottmar Kullmer and Oliver Sandrock organize Malema Fieldschool with students from Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Germany.

Opening of Karonga Museum by the Malawi State President and Harrison Simfukwe, the museum’s Senior Curator.

Yusuf Juwayeyi and Friedemann Schrenk launch fundraising campaign to establish Cultural & Museum Centre Karonga. Malema Camp established.

Paranthropus fragment HCRP RC 911 excavated at Malema. Ottmar Kullmer and Oliver Sandrock continue conducting fieldwork at Malema excavation site and recover important suid specimens from the hominid layer for relative dating.

SUMMER

Ottmar Kullmer and Oliver Sandrock spend June through August in museum collections in Pretoria and Johannesburg, South Africa, and Nairobi, Kenya for their PhD studies on suids and bovid fossils from the most important eastern African hominid sites.

The research team discovers that the greatest fossil concentration is representative of a period surrounding the "2.5 million year-old global cooling event".  This leads to a realization by the team of the importance of biomes to the distribution of animal and early human fossils.

July & August

Discovery of mandible UR 501, a 2.4 million-year-old human jaw from Malawi, of the species Homo rudolfensis (11.08.1991). This fossil is the earliest representative of the genus Homo.

84—88

Inauguration of the Hominid Corridor Research Project, which undertakes yearly surveys in the Chiwondo Beds region of Malawi (Director of Antiquities: Yusuf Juwayeyi). Harrison Simfukwe joined the project in 1989.

November 1982

Friedemann Schrenk and Tim Bromage meet again in Darmstadt, and after reviews of geological maps and satellite imagery, decide that northern Malawi would make an interesting field site of relevance to human evolution.

OCTOBER

New York University College of Dentristry brings  its state-of-the-art laboratory online, uniquely purposed to address aspects of how Humans and their biome influence one another.

JANUARY

A major metabolomics paper is published: The Swine Plasma Metabolome Chronicles "Many Days" — Biological Timing and Functions Linked to Growth

NOVEMBER

10 year anniversary celebrations at the Karonga Museum

since 2011

The research team has published many representative papers and has undertaken major Paleobiomics initiatives.

Winter

The team meets in Frankfurt to discuss the creation of a research field concerned with the systems biology of past environments, particularly those occupied by Human ancestors and names the new field Paleobiomics.

since 2000

Ottmar Kullmer and Oliver Sandrock conduct fieldwork in Galili Southern Afar in Ethiopia’s Somali region. The team also embarks on other field and Human evolution research programs in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia.

Building of the Karonga Museum and development of the exhibition “From Dinosaurs to Democracy.” Hominid Corridor Research Project establishes long-term facilities for research partners and facilities for public understanding in Malawi.

since 1998

Timothy G. Bromage, Friedemann Schrenk, Ottmar Kullmer and Oliver Sandrock conduct fieldwork at Laetoli and Kakesio in Northern Tanzania.

Tim Bromage and Friedemann Schrenk organize Wenner Gren Conference in Salima, pushing a new paradigm that integrates human evolution, ecology and biogeography research — a forerunner to paleobiomics. Ottmar Kullmer and Oliver Sandrock  organize a  fieldcamp in Uraha from October through November.

Oliver Sandrock and Ottmar Kullmer conduct field campaign with extensive surveys in Malawi’s Chiwondo Beds region towards its western rift shoulder. Working in the Ipyana camp, Ottmar Kullmer and Oliver Sandrock discover Malema locality RC 911 with a bone bed of up to 1.30 m thickness.

summer

Oliver Sandrock and Ottmar Kullmer conduct Chilumba beach sieving activity (10 tons) for UR 501 molar fragment. A huge group works on this project, building a road, carrying sacks, and constructing a sieving station. The research team takes a trip through a sandstorm to Tanzania’s Lake Rukwa.

SINCE 1990

DFG Project Funding

July 1983

Friedemann Schrenk and Timothy G. Bromage make first excursion to fossil-bearing localities in the Karonga District, Northern Region, Malawi, just south of the Tanzanian border. Eventually they discover that the time frame represented by the fossils is roughly between four and one million years ago.

april—June 1982

Friedemann Schrenk and Timothy Bromage meet in South Africa, and take on research interests in taphonomy and human evolution.

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