English
 
Help Privacy Policy Disclaimer
  Advanced SearchBrowse

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Released

Journal Article

Arid, mosaic environments during the Plio-Pleistocene transition and early hominin dispersals in northern Africa

MPS-Authors
/persons/resource/persons293361

Ramírez-Pedraza,  Iván
isoTROPIC Independent Research Group, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons250074

Patalano,  Robert
Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Max Planck Society;
isoTROPIC Independent Research Group, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons198648

Roberts,  Patrick
Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Max Planck Society;
isoTROPIC Independent Research Group, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons292078

Jha,  Deepak
Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Max Planck Society;

Fulltext (restricted access)
There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.
Fulltext (public)

gea0323.pdf
(Publisher version), 2MB

Supplementary Material (public)
There is no public supplementary material available
Citation

Ramírez-Pedraza, I., Tornero, C., Aouraghe, H., Rivals, F., Patalano, R., Haddoumi, H., et al. (2024). Arid, mosaic environments during the Plio-Pleistocene transition and early hominin dispersals in northern Africa. Nature Communications, 15(1): 8393. doi:10.1038/s41467-024-52672-0.


Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000F-F147-1
Abstract
The earliest archaeological evidence from northern Africa dates to ca. 2.44 Ma. Nevertheless, the palaeoenvironmental setting of hominins living in this part of the continent at the Plio-Pleistocene transition remains poorly documented, particularly in comparison to eastern and southern Africa. The Guefaït-4 fossil site in eastern Morocco sheds light on our knowledge of palaeoenvironments in northern Africa. Our study reveals the oldest known presence of C4 plants in the northern part of the continent in a mosaic landscape that includes open grasslands, forested areas, wetlands, and seasonal aridity. This diverse landscape and resource availability likely facilitated the occupation of the region by mammals, including potentially hominins. Our regional-scale study provides a complementary perspective to global-scale studies and highlights the importance of considering the diversity of microhabitats within a given region when studying species-dispersal dynamics.