While the Plio-Pleistocene saw the radiation of multiple hominin species adapted to a variety of environments across Africa and beyond, the origin of our clade is firmly rooted in the Miocene. In fact, the distribution and composition of the living African fauna today owe much to the events of the late Miocene and earliest Pliocene. This period featured momentous climatic, glacial, and eustatic shifts on a global scale, in contrast to the preceding warm and relatively stable, middle Miocene (Zachos et al., 2001). Decades of paleoclimatic research – primarily based on ocean, ice, and lake cores (e.g., Hodell et al., 1986; deMenocal, 2004; Cohen et al., 2009; Bonnefille, 2010; Feakins et al., 2013) have enabled the reconstruction of the major changes that occurred during this period. We know that the Earth’s temperature fell precipitously, and that escalation of Antarctic glaciation created knock-on effects in ocean water temperatures, dramatic sea-level drops, and atmospheric circulation changes leading to widespread aridification.