Quaternary Science Reviews最新文献

{"title":"The deposits of reddish impasto “olle”: Archaeological reality and possible interpretations","authors":"Tomaso Di Fraia ,&nbsp;Francesco di Gennaro","doi":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.108998","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.108998","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>For a long time, reference has been made to the so-called \"giacimenti a olle rossicce\", hypothetically linking them to salt production through <em>briquetage</em> or some treatment with salt for specific products. This interpretation of this class of archaeological artifacts has been accepted by many scholars without rigorous analysis. However, the hypothesis of using medium-large “olle” for salt production by boiling brine is not supported by evidence in sites where briquetage is certainly present. Conversely, the distinctive elements of <em>briquetage</em> are entirely absent in our deposits of reddish “olle”. The intentional breakage of containers has never been demonstrated archaeologically and contradicts the results of some experiments. Finally, color does not seem to be a significant aspect.</div><div>The coarse pottery in question, locally produced, was intended for on-site use both as a container for cooking or treating specific products and for storing these products, and probably the salt obtained by natural evaporation. Ultimately, these containers were filled for delivery to carriers or end consumers.</div><div>The sudden increase in \"reddish olle deposits\" along the mid-tyrrhenian coasts during the initial period of the Early Iron Age corresponds to the consolidation phase of proto-state units in Etruria. Subsequent trade now occurs along radial lines connecting central hubs to peripheral functional settlements, located at border nodes or along the coast. In this scenario, salt must have assumed central importance, meeting the needs of internal territories and its use in coastal sites for the preservation industry.</div><div>From the moment the urban and statal system enabled the organization of maritime traffic in a stable and propulsive manner, a significant destination for food preparations, treated or not with salt, and certainly handled in clay containers that often facilitated their preparation in coastal installations, was the supply of food on board for the nutritional needs of the crews.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20926,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Science Reviews","volume":"349 ","pages":"Article 108998"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143138463","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"High-precision U-series dating of Panxian Dadong hominin site, Guizhou Province, southwestern China","authors":"Xiaochao Che ,&nbsp;Fei Han ,&nbsp;Xingsheng Zhang ,&nbsp;Bo Cao ,&nbsp;Ping Xiao ,&nbsp;Guanjun Shen ,&nbsp;Jianxin Zhao","doi":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.109149","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.109149","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Panxian Dadong, an important hominin cave site in Guizhou Province, southwestern China, has yielded significant discoveries, including four hominin teeth, thousands of stone artifacts and abundant mammalian fossils. Previous dating efforts, such as preliminary U-series dating of speleothem samples with alpha spectrometry, subsequent coupled ESR/U-Th dating of fossil teeth, and OSL dating of sediments yielded broadly consistent age results. These studies have widely placed the site within late Middle Pleistocene. In this study, we present updated systematic U-Th dating results obtained using high-precision multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (MC-ICPMS). The new data reveal that speleothem samples from bottom to top in Areas A and C yielded age ranges of 389 to 96 ka and 418 to 33 ka, respectively. In particular, Layer I in Area C was dated to 100-33 ka, indicating that human occupation of the site extended into the Late Pleistocene. A Bayesian analysis refined the age constraints for the hominin fossil-containing Layers VII-II in Area C to approximately ∼320-113 ka, suggesting an earlier dispersal to the region, potentially representing Denisovans or the recently proposed <em>Homo juluensis</em>. Additionally, the artifact-bearing deposits between the fourth and third flowstone layers in Area A, were dated to 389-285 ka, establishing Panxian Dadong as one of the earliest hominin settlement sites in southwestern China during the Middle Pleistocene.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20926,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Science Reviews","volume":"349 ","pages":"Article 109149"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143137904","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From lake to bog: A 15 kyr record of interplay between landscape changes and mercury accumulation (Réserve Naturelle du Luitel, 1250 m a. s. l., western Alps)","authors":"Frédéric Guiter ,&nbsp;Stéphane Guédron ,&nbsp;Vincent Perrot ,&nbsp;Elodie Brisset ,&nbsp;Sarah Bureau ,&nbsp;Marina Renedo ,&nbsp;Sylvain Campillo ,&nbsp;Dahvya Belkacem ,&nbsp;Jacques-Louis de Beaulieu ,&nbsp;Carole Desplanque ,&nbsp;Antonio Martínez-Cortizas","doi":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.109088","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.109088","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Lakes and peatlands are valuable archives for reconstructing past environmental dynamics. Multiproxy studies strive to unravel the complexity of interactions between factors influencing the past evolution of landscapes, including ecosystem dynamics, geomorphological trajectories, palaeoclimatic variability and past human activities.</div><div>This study presents a unique 15,000-year multiproxy record detailing the transition of an alpine landscape from a lacustrine environment to a peatland ecosystem. The combination of high-resolution pollen analysis, inorganic trace elements measurements, and organic matter (OM) characterization by FTIR-ATR enables the connection of vegetation dynamics over time with its role in regulating soil (in)organic matter fluxes, including elements such as mercury (Hg).</div><div>The results indicate that wet and warm climate episodes, such as the mid Holocene climate optimum, significantly enhance mercury uptake by vegetation and lake primary producers. This process is followed by Hg accumulation in the lacustrine environment, closely associated with fresh organic matter. In contrast, during cold and arid climatic periods, such as the Late Glacial, Hg uptake decreases in both the catchment and lake ecosystems. This reduction, coupled with dilution by minerogenic inputs, leads to lower Hg accumulation in the lake. Throughout the Holocene, the lake gradually transitions into a peatland. From the early to mid-Holocene, Hg accumulation is driven by a combination of lacustrine biological pumping, foliar uptake, and atmospheric deposition. Around ca 4500 cal a BP, the disappearance of catchment contribution to the archive drastically changes the interpretation of the mercury signal, which becomes primarily driven by the uptake of atmospheric Hg by bog vegetation. Mercury accumulation is therefore mainly controlled by changes in Hg deposition or re-emissions, lake and peat development and OM humification. Finally, during the Late Holocene, local forest ecosystems decline, as pasturelands develop in the area. The natural Hg signal is also partially obscured by the effects of regional mining activities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20926,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Science Reviews","volume":"349 ","pages":"Article 109088"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143138451","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Independent temperature records since the last deglaciation from the varved sediments of Sihailongwan maar lake, northeastern China","authors":"Pingping Li ,&nbsp;Guoqiang Chu ,&nbsp;Patrick Rioual ,&nbsp;Nan Zhan ,&nbsp;Guibin Zhang ,&nbsp;Zeyang Zhu ,&nbsp;Li Qi ,&nbsp;Manman Xie ,&nbsp;Yuan Ling ,&nbsp;Qing Sun","doi":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.109139","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.109139","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Paleotemperature changes since the last deglaciation provide key insights for understanding gradual and abrupt paleoclimate changes and their forcing factors in different climatic backgrounds. However, there are notable discrepancies between different temperature time series. Here we report a high-resolution temperature reconstruction based on branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (brGDGTs) from annually laminated sediments of the Sihailongwan maar lake in northeastern China and compare it with temperature records from pollen and long-chain alkenones. The brGDGTs-based mean lake water temperature reconstruction shows a mean temperature of 6.1 °C for the Older Dryas, followed by an increase of 2.6 °C until the peak of the Bølling-Allerød, a decrease to 7.8 °C during the Younger Dryas, and a warming from the beginning of the Holocene until 6 ka BP, and finally a gradual decrease until modern times. Although seasonal biases and interpretations differ in different proxy-based reconstructions, all records show broadly similar temperature changes since the last deglaciation. The results suggest that the temperature variations recorded in Sihailongwan maar lake are coupled with high latitude ice-sheet dynamics through atmosphere-ocean circulation systems. The gradual temperature changes could be mainly associated with the ice-volume, while the abrupt variations of the temperature could be related to the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, the intensity of the East Asian winter monsoon and solar activity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20926,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Science Reviews","volume":"349 ","pages":"Article 109139"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143138453","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Coastal boulders emplaced by extreme wave events impacting the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao; Leeward Antilles, Caribbean)","authors":"Giovanni Scardino ,&nbsp;Alessio Rovere ,&nbsp;Chiara Barile ,&nbsp;N.A.K. Nandasena ,&nbsp;Denovan Chauveau ,&nbsp;Malena Dahm ,&nbsp;Patrick Boyden ,&nbsp;Sonia Bejarano ,&nbsp;Elisa Casella ,&nbsp;Harold Kelly ,&nbsp;Eric Mijts ,&nbsp;Giovanni Scicchitano","doi":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.109136","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.109136","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Large coastal boulders are ubiquitous geomorphological features that are emplaced along coasts by extreme marine events such as storms, hurricanes, and tsunamis. Many large coastal boulders have been identified on emergent fossil coral reefs on the windward sides of the Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao (ABC) islands in the Leeward Antilles of the Caribbean. Here, structure-from-motion/multi-view stereo techniques were used to map boulder sizes at several coastal sites in the ABC Islands as well as construct digital terrain models of the surrounding areas. Chronological constraints on boulder transport were established through the radiocarbon dating of the vermetids and coral colonies that comprised boulders located along a ridge on Aruba Island. A suite of hydrodynamic models was used to empirically derive the required flow thresholds for boulder displacement to determine whether tsunamis or hurricanes were responsible for detaching and transporting these boulders. Our results suggest that multiple tsunamis, most likely triggered by the El Pilar fault, located near the Venezuelan coast, were the cause of boulder detachment and transport in this region during the Holocene, between 4000 and 500 years BP.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20926,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Science Reviews","volume":"349 ","pages":"Article 109136"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143138454","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A multi-proxy reconstruction of anthropogenic land use in southwest Asia at 6 kya: Combining archaeological, ethnographic and environmental datasets","authors":"Lynn Welton ,&nbsp;Emily Hammer ,&nbsp;Francesca Chelazzi ,&nbsp;Michelle de Gruchy ,&nbsp;Jane Gaastra ,&nbsp;Dan Lawrence","doi":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.109142","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.109142","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Land use and land cover (LULC) changes have important biophysical and biogeochemical effects on climate via a variety of mechanisms. Several climate modelling studies have demonstrated the impact of LULC scenarios on past climate reconstructions. Testing the impact of anthropogenic land use on mid-Holocene climate thus requires reconstructions of land use that accurately reflect this time frame. To address these concerns, the PAGES LandCover6k working group aims to create data-driven gridded global reconstructions of land use and land cover to provide the climate modelling community with inputs for sensitivity testing of the impact of LULC changes on global climate. As one of the earliest global centres of domestication, agricultural production, and population nucleation, Southwest Asia represents one of the areas of the world expected to display the greatest land use impact and human-induced land cover change at 6 kya, and is therefore critical for the mid-Holocene time frame. Here, we reconstruct land use for Southwest Asia for the 6 kya time frame at a regional scale. We draw on environmental data to reconstruct the range of possible land uses within each particular environment and on archaeological and historical data to reconstruct actualized land use. We then compare this reconstruction to common global LULC models, including the most recent HYDE and KK10 iterations. The reconstruction presented here differs from these previous reconstructions in its methodological approach, spatial extent and resolution. It also differs from both models in population density distribution and land use allocation. While the output of our reconstruction is generally more similar to HYDE 3.2 than KK10, particularly in terms of reconstructed pastoral land use, we model greater agricultural land use than HYDE across the entire region, and less land use overall compared with KK10. The paper provides a method for systematically incorporating archaeological data into models of past land use and demonstrates the value of such an approach for enhancing empirical validity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20926,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Science Reviews","volume":"349 ","pages":"Article 109142"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143138581","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Glass geochemistry and tephrostratigraphy of key tephra layers in and around Lake Van, Eastern Anatolian Volcanic Province (EAVP)","authors":"Rebecca J. Kearney ,&nbsp;Jeremy Goff ,&nbsp;Victoria Smith ,&nbsp;Markus J. Schwab ,&nbsp;Yavuz Özdemir ,&nbsp;Özgür Karaoǧlu ,&nbsp;Matthew Thirlwall ,&nbsp;Dan N. Barfod ,&nbsp;Oona Appelt ,&nbsp;Christina Günter ,&nbsp;Jan Fietzke ,&nbsp;Nadine Pickarski ,&nbsp;Ina Neugebauer ,&nbsp;Rik Tjallingii ,&nbsp;Achim Brauer","doi":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.109165","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.109165","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The volcanoes of Nemrut and Süphan in the Eastern Anatolian Volcanic Province (EAVP) are significant sources of volcanic ash (tephra), which are found in palaeoclimatic and archaeological records in the eastern Mediterranean region. However, there is sparse glass geochemistry and little known about the eruption history of these volcanoes, limiting their full tephrochronological potential. Here, we present detailed, comprehensive single-shard major, minor and trace elem geochemistry of tephra deposits sampled at new and previously studied proximal outcrops around Lake Van and fourteen visible tephra layers (V-layers) from the ICDP Ahlat Ridge (AR) core of Lake Van spanning 130 to 30 ka. The volcanic glass from the following proximal eruption units: Lower Trachytic Pumice (LT-P), Lower Trachytic Ignimbrite (LT-I), Middle Pumices, Upper Rhyolitic Pumice and Ignimbrite (UR-PI), Upper Trachytic Ignimbrite (UT-I), and the chosen V-layers were geochemically characterised. This new glass data allows new and revised previous chrono-stratigraphic correlations between the proximal units and several V-layers. Mixed rhyolitic and trachytic glasses of V-18a correlate to the UR-P and UR-I proximal tephra units, and to previously published data from the Middle Nemrut (M-NF)-O, M-NF-I, Tatvan Ignimbrite and AP-8 units. These are all from the same caldera forming eruption of Nemrut at ∼33 ka. Glasses of the older V-30 layer correlate to a Middle Pumice Unit and M-NF-R, and V-45 represents the ‘Çekmece Formation’. The trachytic glasses of V-51 correlate to LT-P, LT-I and the M-NF-Agglutinate unit erupted from Nemrut. The distinctive basaltic glasses from V-60 correlate to an eruption of İncekaya and V-64 is a newly identified eruption from the Süphan volcano. The older V-layers identified and analysed are from Nemrut based on comparing the new glass compositions to previously published whole-rock and glass data. This comparison indicates the V-75 pantelleritic tephra correlates to the dated AP-4 proximal unit. Each of these large eruptions are easily chemically differentiated using SiO₂, FeO_t, CaO and Al₂O₃. The integration of the proximal outcrops with the continuous, well-constrained Lake Van sedimentary medial record provides a detailed tephrostratigraphic record in a volcanic region where the proximal outcrop record is fragmented and confusing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20926,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Science Reviews","volume":"352 ","pages":"Article 109165"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143104811","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Palaeoenvironmental, stratigraphic and geochronological study of the coastal site of Dalani i Vogël (Vlora, Albania): new evidence for late Neanderthal occupation and prehistoric archaeology","authors":"Federica Badino ,&nbsp;Rudenc Ruka ,&nbsp;Roberta Pini ,&nbsp;Manfred Frechen ,&nbsp;Valentina Argante ,&nbsp;Davide Susini ,&nbsp;Davide Abu El Khair ,&nbsp;Roberto Comolli ,&nbsp;Ilaria Mazzini ,&nbsp;Davide Delpiano ,&nbsp;Kriledjan Çipa ,&nbsp;Davide Margaritora ,&nbsp;Ilir Gjipali ,&nbsp;Marco Peresani","doi":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.109111","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.109111","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Balkan Peninsula is a key biogeographical region in Southern Europe, which acted as a refugium for late Pleistocene flora and fauna during cold spells and favoured the survival of Neanderthals and the migration of modern human populations. This study focuses on the site of Dalani i Vogël (DIV), selected from a cluster of open-air coastal sites north of Vlora (Triporti-Portonovo area, Albania), where lithic artefacts have been related to a multi-layered profile exposed by sea erosion. We sampled the DIV sequence for geochronological analyses (OSL and ¹⁴C), magnetic susceptibility, sedimentary proxies [Loss On Ignition (LOI) steps, calcimetry, nutrients], microstratigraphy, micropaleontology and microbotanical analyses. This exploratory multi-proxy study reveals a long sequence spanning the last 43,000 years, <em>i.e.</em>, the period from MIS 3 to 1. Sedimentological and palynological data, although sparse at some intervals due to the poor preservation of palynomorphs, generally corroborate the chronological data and help to interpret the palaeoenvironment in a lowland situated not far from the sea-coast during MIS 3. Between at least 42,900 and 38,700 years BP, Neanderthals occupied the area in a context of mainly open and patchy environments in a fluvial plain. During the Late Glacial, steppe environments were established at the time of the Heinrich Stadial 1, <em>i.e</em>., 16,200 ± 600 years BP. The beginning of the Holocene favoured an ecological transition from steppe to grassland vegetation communities, the latter being much more prone to wildfires. Vertic soils that developed at this time were then eventually subjected to erosion processes that resulted in a hiatus of several millennia. An Early Neolithic settlement associated with impresso pottery made its appearance in the area in a context of open woodlands, further changing to drier and more anthropised contexts. Considering the geographical position of Albania, the chronostratigraphic and palaeoenvironmental setting obtained from this study is expected to shed new light on the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition and human dynamics that occurred in SE-Europe during MIS 3 to 1.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20926,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Science Reviews","volume":"349 ","pages":"Article 109111"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143138447","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Quaternary landscape evolution of the river Seine (France): Synthesis and new results from ESR dating and magnetostratigraphy of fluvial and cave deposits","authors":"Kim Genuite ,&nbsp;Pierre Voinchet ,&nbsp;Carole Nehme ,&nbsp;Dominique Todisco ,&nbsp;Jean-Jacques Bahain ,&nbsp;Daniel Ballesteros ,&nbsp;Andrew R. Farrant ,&nbsp;Igor Girault ,&nbsp;J. Michael Grappone ,&nbsp;Anne Philippe ,&nbsp;William Rapuc ,&nbsp;Damase Mouralis","doi":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.109063","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.109063","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In this paper we present a detailed Quaternary evolution model of the Seine valley (France). The lower Seine valley contains very specific preserved morphological features (semi-entrenched meander cut-offs) and develops in a karstified chalky plateau (Normandy Chalk). Regional geomorphological features make it possible to combine geomorphological observations, petrological investigations as well as cross-dating analysis of fluvial sediments and karstic archives. We have reviewed former chronological data through a combination of different dating methods including ESR, U-series as well as palaeomagnetism. We also present here new dating results from both cave deposits and fluvial terrace sediments through the combined use of quartz ESR dating method and palaeomagnetism. The obtained results show river evolution extending over the entire Quaternary period. The gentle incision rate and its variations highlight the influence of climate and eustatic processes, hence a partially climate-induced uplift. Results also provide new chronological markers on the fluvial deposits for future archaeological research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20926,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Science Reviews","volume":"349 ","pages":"Article 109063"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143138448","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Middle Stone Age (MSA) in the Atlantic rainforests of Central Africa. The case of Río Campo region in Equatorial Guinea","authors":"Antonio Rosas ,&nbsp;Antonio García-Tabernero ,&nbsp;Darío Fidalgo ,&nbsp;Maximiliano Fero Meñe ,&nbsp;Cayetano Ebana Ebana ,&nbsp;Mateo Ornia ,&nbsp;Javier Fernández-Martínez ,&nbsp;Sergio Sánchez-Moral ,&nbsp;Juan Ignacio Morales","doi":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.109132","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.109132","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Understanding the evolutionary history of humans within the rainforest ecosystems of Central West Africa poses a significant challenge. These environments are crucial for exploring both the biological and cultural development of <em>Homo sapiens</em>. However, the lack of comprehensive archaeological and chronological sequences in African rainforests hampers efforts to situate them within a broader evolutionary framework. In this study, we present findings from our surveys conducted in northern Equatorial Guinea. Specifically, in the Río Campo (also referred to as Río Ntem) region, we investigated 30 Quaternary stratigraphic outcrops, 16 of which contained stone tools. Among these, the Campo 11 site stands out due to the complexity of its lithic assemblage, representing one of the most significant indicators of human occupation in the Pleistocene of Central West Africa. Geomorphological reconstruction of the area suggests the development of a meandering fluvial system during the Upper Pleistocene. This system was characterized by sandbars and shallow channel beds overlaying a Cretaceous basement. Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) and radiocarbon (14C) dating place the occupation phases within these sedimentary units between over 44,000 and 20,000 years ago, with a lower sand unit dating back 76,000 years, marking the beginning of the Quaternary sequence. The lithic assemblages from Río Campo, particularly those from Campo 11 and Campo 4, provide compelling evidence of human presence approximately 24,000 years ago. These assemblages are characterized by tools associated with the Lupemban technocomplex, including large cutting tools, bifacial points, heavy-duty implements, Levallois cores, and occasional blade production. Their techno-typological attributes align with Middle Stone Age traditions and point to a cultural continuity rooted in the Acheulean–Sangoan–Lupemban succession, which dates back some 250,000 to 300,000 years. Nevertheless, the absence of earlier stratigraphic records limits our findings to a minimum age for human occupation in this region. The timing and extent of the earliest settlements along the Atlantic fringe remain elusive. While Lupemban industries hint at profound cultural continuity in Central African rainforests, the paucity of high-quality archaeological data prevents definitive conclusions. Further research is essential to address these gaps and fully integrate the Central West African rainforests into the broader narrative of human evolutionary history.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20926,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Science Reviews","volume":"349 ","pages":"Article 109132"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143138455","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}