Timing and causes of North African wet phases during the last glacial period and implications for modern human migration
We present the first speleothem-derived central North Africa rainfall record for the last glacial period. The record reveals three main wet periods at 65-61 ka, 52.5-50.5 ka and 37.5-33 ka that lead obliquity maxima and precession minima. We find additional minor wet episodes that are synchronous wi...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:5093410 2023-05-15T16:29:27+02:00 Timing and causes of North African wet phases during the last glacial period and implications for modern human migration Hoffmann, Dirk L. Rogerson, Mike Spötl, Christoph Luetscher, Marc Vance, Derek Osborne, Anne H. Fello, Nuri M. Moseley, Gina E. 2016-11-03 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5093410/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27808237 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep36367 en eng Nature Publishing Group http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5093410/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27808237 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep36367 Copyright © 2016, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ CC-BY Article Text 2016 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/srep36367 2016-11-13T01:11:04Z We present the first speleothem-derived central North Africa rainfall record for the last glacial period. The record reveals three main wet periods at 65-61 ka, 52.5-50.5 ka and 37.5-33 ka that lead obliquity maxima and precession minima. We find additional minor wet episodes that are synchronous with Greenland interstadials. Our results demonstrate that sub-tropical hydrology is forced by both orbital cyclicity and North Atlantic moisture sources. The record shows that after the end of a Saharan wet phase around 70 ka ago, North Africa continued to intermittently receive substantially more rainfall than today, resulting in favourable environmental conditions for modern human expansion. The encounter and subsequent mixture of Neanderthals and modern humans – which, on genetic evidence, is considered to have occurred between 60 and 50 ka – occurred synchronously with the wet phase between 52.5 and 50.5 ka. Based on genetic evidence the dispersal of modern humans into Eurasia started less than 55 ka ago. This may have been initiated by dry conditions that prevailed in North Africa after 50.5 ka. The timing of a migration reversal of modern humans from Eurasia into North Africa is suggested to be coincident with the wet period between 37.5 and 33 ka. Text Greenland North Atlantic PubMed Central (PMC) Greenland Scientific Reports 6 1 |
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Article Hoffmann, Dirk L. Rogerson, Mike Spötl, Christoph Luetscher, Marc Vance, Derek Osborne, Anne H. Fello, Nuri M. Moseley, Gina E. Timing and causes of North African wet phases during the last glacial period and implications for modern human migration |
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We present the first speleothem-derived central North Africa rainfall record for the last glacial period. The record reveals three main wet periods at 65-61 ka, 52.5-50.5 ka and 37.5-33 ka that lead obliquity maxima and precession minima. We find additional minor wet episodes that are synchronous with Greenland interstadials. Our results demonstrate that sub-tropical hydrology is forced by both orbital cyclicity and North Atlantic moisture sources. The record shows that after the end of a Saharan wet phase around 70 ka ago, North Africa continued to intermittently receive substantially more rainfall than today, resulting in favourable environmental conditions for modern human expansion. The encounter and subsequent mixture of Neanderthals and modern humans – which, on genetic evidence, is considered to have occurred between 60 and 50 ka – occurred synchronously with the wet phase between 52.5 and 50.5 ka. Based on genetic evidence the dispersal of modern humans into Eurasia started less than 55 ka ago. This may have been initiated by dry conditions that prevailed in North Africa after 50.5 ka. The timing of a migration reversal of modern humans from Eurasia into North Africa is suggested to be coincident with the wet period between 37.5 and 33 ka. |
format |
Text |
author |
Hoffmann, Dirk L. Rogerson, Mike Spötl, Christoph Luetscher, Marc Vance, Derek Osborne, Anne H. Fello, Nuri M. Moseley, Gina E. |
author_facet |
Hoffmann, Dirk L. Rogerson, Mike Spötl, Christoph Luetscher, Marc Vance, Derek Osborne, Anne H. Fello, Nuri M. Moseley, Gina E. |
author_sort |
Hoffmann, Dirk L. |
title |
Timing and causes of North African wet phases during the last glacial period and implications for modern human migration |
title_short |
Timing and causes of North African wet phases during the last glacial period and implications for modern human migration |
title_full |
Timing and causes of North African wet phases during the last glacial period and implications for modern human migration |
title_fullStr |
Timing and causes of North African wet phases during the last glacial period and implications for modern human migration |
title_full_unstemmed |
Timing and causes of North African wet phases during the last glacial period and implications for modern human migration |
title_sort |
timing and causes of north african wet phases during the last glacial period and implications for modern human migration |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5093410/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27808237 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep36367 |
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Greenland |
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Greenland |
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Greenland North Atlantic |
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Greenland North Atlantic |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5093410/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27808237 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep36367 |
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Copyright © 2016, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
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CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/srep36367 |
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Scientific Reports |
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