TY - JOUR
T1 - Hydroclimate changes in eastern Africa over the past 200,000 years may have influenced early human dispersal
AU - Schaebitz, Frank
AU - Asrat, Asfawossen
AU - Lamb, Henry F.
AU - Cohen, Andrew S.
AU - Foerster, Verena
AU - Duesing, Walter
AU - Kaboth-Bahr, Stefanie
AU - Opitz, Stephan
AU - Viehberg, Finn A.
AU - Vogelsang, Ralf
AU - Dean, Jonathan
AU - Leng, Melanie J.
AU - Junginger, Annett
AU - Ramsey, Christopher Bronk
AU - Chapot, Melissa S.
AU - Deino, Alan
AU - Lane, Christine S.
AU - Roberts, Helen M.
AU - Vidal, Céline
AU - Tiedemann, Ralph
AU - Trauth, Martin H.
N1 - Acknowledgements
Support for HSPDP was provided by the National Science Foundation (EAR-1338553) and the International Continental Drilling Program (ICDP). Chew Bahir drilling was supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) through the Priority Program SPP 1006 ICDP (FS: SCHA 472/13 and /18, MHT: TR 419/8, /10 and /16) and the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 806 “Our Way to Europe”, Project Number 57444011. Support has also been received from the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC, NE/K014560/1, IP/1623/0516). Geochronological research was supported by National Science Foundation grant EAR 1322017 to AD. We thank the Federal and Regional Governments of Ethiopia, and the Hammar woreda local authorities for providing drilling permit and facilitating drilling activities in the Chew Bahir basin. The Ministry of Mines of Ethiopia is acknowledged for permitting and facilitating sample exports. We thank DOSECC Exploration Services for drilling supervision, EthioDer pvt. Ltd. Co. for providing logistical support during the drilling operations. We would like to extend our gratitude for the unreserved support we received from the Hammar people and the Turmi Police Administration during the whole period of the drilling operations. Initial core processing and sampling were conducted at the US National Lacustrine Core Facility (LacCore) at the University of Minnesota. We would also like to thank the Hammar elder chief Weino, Mesfin Mekonnen, Jonas Urban, Gerrit Dorenbeck, Bahru Zinaye Asegahegn, Meklit Yadeta, Christian Mast, Steve Cole, Antoni J. Vecchiarelli, Beau Marshall, Ryan O’Grady, Jessica Rodysill, Kristina Brady Shannon, Dorothea Klinghardt, Nicole Mantke, Erik Brown, Mona Stockhecke and Sinja Kraus, for their support during drilling and laboratory work. Thanks go to Frederik von Reumont for creating Fig. 1 and Daniel Gebregiorgis for editing Supplementary Fig. S2 of this paper. S.K.B. has received additional financial support from the University of Potsdam Open Topic Postdoc Program. This is publication No. 37 of the Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project.
PY - 2021/12/1
Y1 - 2021/12/1
N2 - Reconstructions of climatic and environmental conditions can contribute to current debates about the factors that influenced early human dispersal within and beyond Africa. Here we analyse a 200,000-year multi-proxy paleoclimate record from Chew Bahir, a tectonic lake basin in the southern Ethiopian rift. Our record reveals two modes of climate change, both associated temporally and regionally with a specific type of human behavior. The first is a long-term trend towards greater aridity between 200,000 and 60,000 years ago, modulated by precession-driven wet-dry cycles. Here, more favorable wetter environmental conditions may have facilitated long-range human expansion into new territory, while less favorable dry periods may have led to spatial constriction and isolation of local human populations. The second mode of climate change observed since 60,000 years ago mimics millennial to centennial-scale Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles and Heinrich events. We hypothesize that human populations may have responded to these shorter climate fluctuations with local dispersal between montane and lowland habitats.
AB - Reconstructions of climatic and environmental conditions can contribute to current debates about the factors that influenced early human dispersal within and beyond Africa. Here we analyse a 200,000-year multi-proxy paleoclimate record from Chew Bahir, a tectonic lake basin in the southern Ethiopian rift. Our record reveals two modes of climate change, both associated temporally and regionally with a specific type of human behavior. The first is a long-term trend towards greater aridity between 200,000 and 60,000 years ago, modulated by precession-driven wet-dry cycles. Here, more favorable wetter environmental conditions may have facilitated long-range human expansion into new territory, while less favorable dry periods may have led to spatial constriction and isolation of local human populations. The second mode of climate change observed since 60,000 years ago mimics millennial to centennial-scale Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles and Heinrich events. We hypothesize that human populations may have responded to these shorter climate fluctuations with local dispersal between montane and lowland habitats.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85116444064&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s43247-021-00195-7
DO - 10.1038/s43247-021-00195-7
M3 - Article
SN - 2662-4435
VL - 2
JO - Communications Earth & Environment
JF - Communications Earth & Environment
IS - 1
M1 - 123
ER -
