This question has now some surprising new answers. Paleontologists, anthropologists and climatologists will address the issue in a two-day symposium organized by the Earth Institute at Columbia University on 19 – 20 April 2012. Using advances in the fossil record and novel methods for reconstructing past climate, leading scientists will illustrate the latest evidence for climate and faunal changes in East Africa over the last five million years and discuss how they may have influenced the evolution of our ancestors. Many researchers and experts in the field, such as the paleontologist Richard Leaky (SUNY Stony Brook/Turkana Research Institute), the paleoclimatologist Peter deMenocal (Lamont – Doherty Earth Observatory), the geologist Naomi Levin (Johns Hopkins University), the geochemist Thure Cerling (University of Utah), Rick Potts (director of the Smithsonian Institution Human Origins Program), Lars Werdelin (curator and experts of fossil vertebrates at the Swedish Museum of Natural History) and many others, will join the summit.

For further details, the full list of confirmed speakers and agenda, look at the meeting site and at the official website of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Photo by the Adventurous Eye.