Scott Blumenthal
Scott Blumenthal is an Assistant Professor in the Anthropology Department at the University of Oregon, where he directs the Isotopic Paleoecology Laboratory. His research centers on the ecology and evolution of early hominins in Africa, and relies primarily on isotopic approaches to investigate dietary and environmental change in the fossil record. He also conducts research on the ecology and evolution of non-human primates and other mammals. Projects involve a range of laboratory, museum, and field-based work. Scott has conducted fieldwork in eastern Africa for the last 15 years and is actively involved in projects in the Lake Victoria (Homa Peninsula) and Lake Turkana regions in Kenya and the Lake Albert basin in Uganda. Laboratory work is focused on developing novel techniques to reconstruct aspects of early hominin environments and paleobiology. He was previously a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Newton International Fellow at the University of Oxford, and received his PhD from the City University of New York and New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology. His research has been supported by the National Geographic Society, National Science Foundation, Leakey Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation, British Academy, and the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council.
Selected Publications
Manthi FK, Cerling TE, Chritz KL, Blumenthal SA. 2020. Diets of mammalian fossil fauna from Kanapoi, northwestern Kenya. Journal of Human Evolution 140:102338.
Grine FE, Lee-Thorp J, Blumenthal S, Sponheimer M, Teaford MF, Ungar PS, van der Merwe NJ, Yang D. 2020. Stable carbon isotope and molar microwear variability of South African australopiths in relation to paleohabitats and taxonomy. Schmidt, C. and Watson, J.T (Eds). Dental wear in evolutionary and biocultural contexts. London, Elsevier (Academic Press).
Blumenthal SA, Cerling TE, Smiley TM, Badgley CE, Plummer TW. 2019. Isotopic records of climate seasonality. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 260:329-348.
Blumenthal SA, Levin NE, Brown FH, Brugal J-P, Chritz KL, Harris JM, Jehle GE, Cerling TE. 2017. Aridity and hominin environments. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114:7331-7336.
Tryon CA, Faith JT, Peppe DJ, Beverly E, Blegen N, Blumenthal SA, Chritz KL, Driese S, Patterson D, Sharp W. 2016. Pleistocene prehistory of the Lake Victoria basin. Quaternary International 404:100-114.
Cerling TE, Andanje SA, Blumenthal SA, Brown FH, Chritz KL, Harris JM, Hart J, Kirera F, Kaleme P, Leakey LN, Leakey MG, Levin NE, Manthi FK, Passey BH, Uno KT. 2015. Dietary changes of large herbivores in the Turkana Basin, Kenya from 4 to 1 million years ago. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112:11467-11472.
Blumenthal SA, Chritz KL, Rothman JM, Cerling TE. 2012. Detecting intra-annual dietary variability in wild mountain gorillas by stable isotope analysis of feces. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109:21277-21282.