4.7 Article

Changes in the cyclicity and variability of the eastern African paleoclimate over the last 620 kyrs

Journal

QUATERNARY SCIENCE REVIEWS
Volume 273, Issue -, Pages -

Publisher

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2021.107219

Keywords

African climate; Time series analysis; Wavelet; Principle component analysis; Orbital forcing

Funding

  1. National Science Foundation (NSF)
  2. International Continental Drilling Program (ICDP)
  3. Germany Research Foundation (DFG) through the Priority Program SPP 1006 ICDP [SCHA 472/13, SCHA 472/18, TR 419/8, TR 419/10, TR 419/16, FO 734/2-1]
  4. Germany Research Foundation (DFG) through the CRC 806 Research Project Our way to Europe [57444011]
  5. UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) [NE/K014560/1, IP/1623/0516]
  6. Open-Topic Post-Doc fellowship of the University of Potsdam
  7. Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project

Ask authors/readers for more resources

The study findings suggest that the long-term wet-dry changes in the eastern African climate are mainly due to changes in orbital eccentricity, which may have affected the habitat of H. sapiens. The transition from Acheulean to Middle Stone Age coincides with a period of relatively dry climate, while the first documented occurrence of H. sapiens in eastern Africa was characterized by wetter conditions.
There is ongoing debate concerning whether or not changes in the eastern African climate, both longterm and short-term, affected the evolution, dispersal, cultural development, and technological innovations of Homo sapiens - and if so, in what way. We present the wavelet spectral analysis results of a similar to 620 kyr record of environmental change from the Chew Bahir (CHB) basin in the southern Ethiopian rift, approximately 120 km from the Omo-Kibish fossil locality, which boasts one of the oldest documented appearances of H. sapiens. Our results indicate that the long-term wet-dry changes in the eastern African climate recorded in the CHB sediments were mainly caused by changes in orbital eccentricity, with relatively dry but variable climates occurring during eccentricity minima within the 400 kyr eccentricity cycle, and increased precipitation, interspersed with distinctly dryer phases associated with orbital precession, during eccentricity maxima. Such insolation-forced precipitation changes would have affected the habitat of H. sapiens in the region; the transition from Acheulean to Middle Stone Age (MSA) documented in the Olorgesailie Basin of southern Kenya coincides with a distinct eccentricity minimum with reduced precipitation and repeated abrupt climatic transitions. In contrast, at the time of the subsequent, first documented occurrence of H. sapiens in eastern Africa the climate was distinctly wetter and less variable. (C) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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