Tina Lüdecke
I investigate early hominin diets and their ecological context, with a particular focus on the onset and evolution of meat consumption and the position of Plio-Pleistocene hominins in African food webs. My research uses stable isotope analyses of tooth enamel to reconstruct diet and trophic ecology, combining studies of fossil hominins and associated fauna with work on living primates as comparative models for interpreting the dietary ecology of our early ancestors.
A major focus of my recent work is the development and application of enamel-bound nitrogen isotope analysis as a new paleodietary proxy. Applying this approach to early hominins for the first time, my colleagues and I showed that Australopithecus from Sterkfontein, South Africa, did not regularly consume mammalian meat. In parallel, we investigate the isotopic ecology of wild primates, including chimpanzees and baboons from Issa Valley, Tanzania, to better understand how dietary behaviors such as insect consumption and plant-based feeding are expressed isotopically and how these patterns can inform interpretations of fossil hominin diets.
More broadly, I reconstruct the Neogene landscapes inhabited by early hominins, examining C4 grassland expansion and changes in seasonality, precipitation, temperature, and tree cover. My work combines field research with stable isotope and geochemical approaches applied to fossil tooth enamel, pedogenic carbonates, and other environmental archives across eastern and southern Africa and at younger out-of-Africa sites.
My overarching goal is to understand how dietary flexibility and changing resource use shaped hominin adaptation and evolution, and how studies of living primates can help us distinguish among the dietary strategies preserved in the fossil record.
