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Revisiting macromammal exploitation in the Spanish Cantabrian region during the lower Magdalenian (ca. 20-17 ky cal BP) Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-17 R. Portero, M.J. Fernández-Gómez, E. Álvarez-Fernández
Understanding the ways in which human groups use the environment for their survival is one of the main fields of study in Prehistory. Subsistence strategies, understood as the set of techniques, processes and activities through which human groups organise the tasks related to their survival, are a fundamental element for understanding the economic and sociocultural processes derived from these practices
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Heinrich Event 2 (ca. 24 ka BP) as a chrono-climatic anchor for the appearance of Epipaleolithic backed bladelets microlith industries in the Southern Levant Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-17 Itay Abadi, Adi Torfstein, David E. Friesem, Dafna Langgut, Minji Jin, Rivka Rabinovich, Tikvah Steiner, Debora Zurro, Shira Gur-Arieh, Ahiad Ovadia, Adrian Nigel Goring-Morris
The Early Epipaleolithic (EEP) of the Southern Levant, roughly dated to 25-18 ka BP, is characterized by microlithic industries with highly variable synchronic and geographic techno-typological characteristics, the chronology of which remains poorly understood.
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Postglacial landscape dynamics and fire regimes in west Central Patagonia, Chile (44°S, 72°W): Evidence from the Cisnes River Basin Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-16 Valentina Álvarez-Barra, Antonio Maldonado, María Eugenia de Porras, Amalia Nuevo-Delaunay, César Méndez
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Evidence of bears exploitation by early Neanderthals at the middle pleistocene site of payre (MIS 8-6, Southeastern France) Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-16 Nicolas Lateur, Camille Daujeard, Jean-Baptiste Fourvel, Marie-Hélène Moncel
The archaeological site of Payre (South-eastern France) has yielded a remarkable Early Middle Palaeolithic sequence with mixed occupations of Neanderthal and large carnivore occupations ranging from MIS 8 to 6. Recent discoveries during the reassessment of collections brought to light at least a dozen cave () and brown bear () remains bearing cut marks, indicating the carcass processing (skinning,
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Biodiversity responses to Lateglacial climate change in the subdecadally-resolved record of Lake Hämelsee (Germany) Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-16 S. Engels, C.S. Lane, W.Z. Hoek, I. Baneschi, A. Bouwman, E. Brogan, C. Bronk Ramsey, J. Collins, R. de Bruijn, A. Haliuc, O. Heiri, K. Hubay, G. Jones, V. Jones, A. Laug, J. Merkt, F. Muschitiello, M. Müller, T. Peters, F. Peterse, A. Pueschel, R.A. Staff, A. ter Schure, F. Turner, V. van den Bos, F. Wagner-Cremer
Anthropogenically-driven climate warming and land use change are the main causes of an ongoing decrease in global biodiversity. It is unclear how ecosystems, particularly freshwater habitats, will respond to such continuous and potentially intensifying disruptions. Here we analyse how different components of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems responded to natural climate change during the Lateglacial
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Multi-proxy temperature and environmental reconstruction during the Late Glacial and Early Holocene in the Bohemian Forest, Central Europe Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-13 Amanda Mateo-Beneito, Gabriela Florescu, Jolana Tátosová, Vachel A. Carter, Richard Chiverrell, Oliver Heiri, Iuliana Vasiliev, Niina Kuosmanen, Petr Kuneš
Multi-proxy temperature reconstructions can provide robust insights into past environmental conditions. By combining different proxies we can disentangle the temperature signal from the indirect climate effects on the environment. This study uses a multi-proxy approach to reconstruct temperature and palaeoenvironmental conditions during the Late Glacial and Early Holocene (13.5–8 cal. ka BP) in the
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Massive early Middle Pleistocene cheetah from eastern Asia shed light onto the evolution of Acinonyx in Eurasia Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-12 Qigao Jiangzuo, Yaming Wang, Joan Madurell-Malapeira, Saverio Bartolini Lucenti, Shijie Li, Shiqi Wang, Zhaoyu Li, Rong Yang, Yi Jia, Lu Zhang, Shanqin Chen, Changzhu Jin, Yuan Wang, Jinyi Liu
The fossil record of cheetahs in eastern Asia is notably scarce and predominantly fragmented, leaving the evolution of this lineage in eastern Asia largely enigmatic. In this study, we present new findings from two early Middle Pleistocene sites, the upper deposits (L2) of Jinyuan Cave (Dalian) and Zhoukoudian Loc.13 (Beijing). These specimens are identified here as and represent the latest and largest-sized
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A matter of fat: Hunting preferences affected Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions and human evolution Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-11 Miki Ben-Dor, Ran Barkai
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Evolution of the alluvial fan channel longitudinal profile and aggradation/degradation processes in the piedmont Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-11 Yanan Zhang, Xiaofei Hu, Wei Wang, Baotian Pan
In the piedmont of uplifting mountains, alluvial fan rivers undergo significant aggradation-degradation processes, which are usually attributed to climate change. An ongoing debate is whether this process requests the participation of glaciation. To address this debate, we need the knowledge of the quantitative relationship between the ratio of water to sediment flux () with the aggradation/degradation
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Vegetation and glacier dynamics are sensitive to summer (not winter) warming and the evidence for larch refugia in the ‘Northern Pole of Cold’ inferred from sedimentary ancient DNA and geochemistry Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-11 Weihan Jia, Boris K. Biskaborn, Kathleen R. Stoof-Leichsenring, Luidmila A. Pestryakova, Ulrike Herzschuh
Climate seasonality critically influences the functioning and dynamics of ecosystems in continental areas. The ecological importance of winter temperatures on high-latitude vegetation changes has recently been argued to be largely overlooked in comparison to summer temperatures. The Oymyakon region from eastern Siberia, with its strong continentality of extremely cold winters and moderately warm summers
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Behind the waterfall - Interdisciplinary results from Holley Shelter and their implications for understanding human behavioral patterns at the end of the Middle Stone Age in southern Africa Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-11 Gregor D. Bader, Aurore Val, Edwin Gevers, Sara E. Rhodes, Nina Stahl, Stephan Woodborne, Manuel Will
Holley Shelter is a Middle (MSA) and Later Stone Age (LSA) site in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The rock shelter is located at the intersection of three ecosystems, in a strip of the Savanna Biome between the Grassland and Indian Ocean Coastal Belt Biomes. Initial excavations in the 1950s by Gordon Cramb yielded large amounts of unifacial points and splintered pieces, as well as organic remains associated
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Grotta Grande (southern Italy). Disentangling the Neandertal and carnivore interaction in a short-term palimpsest at the last glacial onset (∼116-109 ka) Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-11 Vincenzo Spagnolo, Jacopo Crezzini, Christophe Falguères, Olivier Tombret, Lisa Garbe, Jean-Jacques Bahain, Biagio Giaccio, Simona Arrighi, Daniele Aureli, Isak Eckberg, Paolo Boscato, Annamaria Ronchitelli, Francesco Boschin
The Mousterian of the Grotta Grande (Southern Italy) is here subject to new dating, which provide a surprisingly high-resolution on the stratigraphic sequence. Overall, the deposit in the Trench F appears framed in the MIS 5, into a brief chronological time span immediately after the Last Interglacial, between ∼116 ka and 109 ka.
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A 7000-year record of extreme flood events reconstructed from a threshold lake in southern Norway Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-10 Johannes Hardeng, Jostein Bakke, Jan Magne Cederstrøm, Jonas Forsmo, Thea Aske Haugen, Pierre Sabatier, Eivind Wilhelm Nagel Støren, Willem Godert Maria van der Bilt
Recent decades have witnessed a shift in the seasonality and frequency of river floods in Norway, primarily attributed to contemporary global warming. Such changes necessitate a more comprehensive understanding of climate-flood dynamics across river systems. A significant challenge in flood risk assessment is that instrumental data records cover only the last few decades and do not capture low-frequency
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Briquetage in early Hellenistic Etruscan Spina (Ferrara, Italy) Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-09 Christoph Reusser
Excavations in the urban area of the Etruscan port city of Spina near Ferrara (Italy) have shown that the city had a roughly trapezoidal ground plan and covered an area of about 6 ha. In the east it was situated on the ancient course of the river Po () and in the west and south-west probably on a lagoon and another smaller river. The study project of the University of Zurich (2008–2017) had the goal
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A commentary on holocene relative sea-level histories of far-field islands in the mid-pacific by F. Tan, N. S. Khan, T. Li, A. J. Meltzner, J. Majewski, N. Chan, P. M. Chutcharavan, N. Cahill, M. Vacchi, D. Peng, B. P. Horton, Quaternary science reviews 310: 107,995; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.107995 Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-06 Nadine Hallmann, Gilbert Camoin, Anton Eisenhauer, Elias Samankassou, Claude Vella, Albéric Botella, Glenn A. Milne, Jan Fietzke, Tyler Goepfert
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Middle Pleistocene Hippopotamus amphibius (Mammalia, Hippopotamidae) from southern Europe: Implications for morphology, morphometry and biogeography Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-06 Roberta Martino, Fabrizio Marra, Victor Beccari, Maria Ibanez Ríos, Luca Pandolfi
Hippopotamuses were present in Western Europe during the Pleistocene with at least two continental species: and . The former was the large European hippopotamus, which appeared in the fossil record around 2 Ma and successfully spread across Europe before its last appearance datum (LAD) in Portugal and Greece, dated to 0.4 Ma. The extant hippopotamus, . , first occurred in Africa around 1.5 Ma, and
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New constraints on the Middle-Late Pleistocene Campi Flegrei explosive activity and Mediterranean tephrostratigraphy (∼160 ka and 110–90 ka) Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-05 Giada Fernandez, Biagio Giaccio, Antonio Costa, Lorenzo Monaco, Sébastien Nomade, Paul G. Albert, Alison Pereira, Molly Flynn, Niklas Leicher, Federico Lucchi, Paola Petrosino, Danilo M. Palladino, Alfonsa Milia, Donatella Domenica Insinga, Sabine Wulf, Rebecca Kearney, Daniel Veres, Diana Jordanova, Maria Luisa Putignano, Roberto Isaia, Gianluca Sottili
The Campi Flegrei (CF) caldera, in southern Italy, is the source of some of the most powerful Late Pleistocene eruptions of the European sub-continent (e.g., Campanian Ignimbrite, Neapolitan Yellow Tuff eruptions). Although the CF caldera has been continuously and intensively investigated for decades, relatively little is known regarding its earliest volcanic activity. In this work, integrating existing
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Changes in prehistoric wood procurement strategies in Northern China from 6500 – 2000 BP. Evidence for human preferential harvesting in the face of climatic change Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-04 Fengwen Liu, Yatao Wang, Hu Li, Xiaonan Zhang, Youhong Gao, Yang Zhang, Qi Liu, Haoyu Li, Lizeng Duan, Hucai Zhang, Jade D'Alpoim Guedes
In the past, humans have adapted their strategies of wood collection to shifts in the surrounding environment. Shifts in wood procurement strategies have been assumed to have been heavily influenced by changes in biomes due to shifts in climate. In these models, wood found on archaeological sites is interpreted as being representative of the surrounding environment. Around the world there is an increasing
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Hydrothermal and eco-environmental evolution on the southeastern Chinese Loess Plateau since the last deglaciation: evidence from terrestrial mollusk records Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-04 Ya-na Jia, Hong Yan, Jibao Dong, Shugang Kang, Guozhen Wang, Chengcheng Liu, Qian Zhang, John Dodson
The ongoing global warming is altering hydrothermal patterns and eco-environments. However, it is unclear how they would respond under a natural warming scenario. Terrestrial mollusks in loess-paleosol sequences could serve as natural biological archives to explore this issue. In this study, terrestrial mollusk records from two loess-paleosol profiles on the southeastern Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP)
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Glacier dam evolution and knickpoint migration in the Yarlung Tsangpo Gorge, eastern Himalayas, since the last glacial period Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-04 Ping Wang, Huiying Wang, Gang Hu, Tao Liu, Cuiping Li, Jintang Qin, Yukui Ge
The repeated cut-and-fill process induced by the late Quaternary glacial damming and catastrophic outburst events in the Yarlung Tsangpo Gorge (YTG) in the eastern Himalaya may reflect the interaction between rock uplift, climate change and river incision in the southeastern Tibetan Plateau. Here we provide the detailed reconstruction of the cut-and-fill history recorded at the entrance of the YTG
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East Asian monsoon and westerly jet driven changes in climate and surface conditions in the NE drylands of China since the Late Pleistocene Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-03 Steve Pratte, Kushan Bao, Chuxian Li, Wenfang Zhang, Gaël Le Roux, Gaojun Li, François De Vleeschouwer
The East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) is a major component of the global climate yet, the causes for the past spatiotemporal variability of EASM rainfall, its interactions and impacts remain unresolved. Here we use the Sr–Nd isotopes and rare earth elements composition of dust in a peat record from northeast (NE) China to investigate the relationship between aeolian dust, the East Asian monsoon and
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Late Pleistocene prey mobility in southwestern France and its implications for reconstructing Neandertal ranging behaviors Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-02 Jamie Hodgkins, Alex Bertacchi, Kelly J. Knudson, Troy Rasbury, Julia I. Giblin, Gwyneth Gordon, Ariel Anbar, Alain Turq, Dennis Sandgathe, Hannah M. Keller, Kate Britton, Shannon P. McPherron
As hunter-gatherers, Neandertal mobility and corresponding adaptations were influenced by the mobility of their prey; thus, it is critical to track how the movement patterns of each species varied over time at specific sites. Here, prey paleomobility is reconstructed by measuring radiogenic strontium isotope ratios (Sr/Sr) in herbivore teeth recovered from two archaeological sites (Pech de l’Azé IV
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Paleo-valley infills record landscape response to late-Quaternary glacial/interglacial climate oscillations in the French western Alps Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-30 Vivien Mai Yung Sen, Pierre G. Valla, Peter A. van der Beek, François Lemot, Christian Crouzet, Gilles Brocard
Reconstructing mountainous landscape evolution throughout the Quaternary is challenging because of the poor long-term preservation of geomorphic records in a context of rapid surface dynamics and topographic rejuvenation. The Quaternary geomorphic evolution of the western European Alps has been strongly controlled by climatic oscillations between glacial and interglacial periods. Significant erosion
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Reevaluating the “elephant butchery area” at the Middle Pleistocene site of Notarchirico (MIS 16) (Venosa Basin, Basilicata, Italy) Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-30 Antonio Pineda, Beniamino Mecozzi, Alessio Iannucci, Marco Carpentieri, Raffaele Sardella, Rivka Rabinovich, Marie-Hélène Moncel
The archaeological site of Notarchirico, chronologically placed at the end of MIS 17 and MIS 16 (675-610 ka), is a key site for studying Acheulean technology in southern Europe and gaining a better understanding of human occupation in that region during the Middle Pleistocene. It was excavated between 1979 and 1995 by Marcello Piperno and re-opened since 2016. Between 1990 and 1991, around forty remains
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Persistence of Holocene ice cap in northeast Svalbard aided by glacio-isostatic rebound Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-29 Wesley R. Farnsworth, Ólafur Ingólfsson, Skafti Brynjólfsson, Lis Allaart, Sofia E. Kjellman, Kurt H. Kjær, Nicolaj K. Larsen, Marc Macias-Fauria, Marie-Louise Siggaard-Andersen, Anders Schomacker
The deglaciation of the Svalbard-Barents Sea Ice Sheet was driven by relative sea-level rise, the incursion of North Atlantic waters around Spitsbergen, and increasing summer insolation. However, ice retreat was interrupted by asynchronous re-advances that occurred into high relative seas, during a period associated with warm regional waters and elevated summer temperatures. Better understanding of
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Complete last glacial cycle cosmogenic 36Cl glacial chronology of Mt. Aladağlar, central Taurus range, Southern Türkiye Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-28 Attila Çi̇ner, M. Akif Sarıkaya, Marek Zreda, Oğuzhan Köse, Cengiz Yıldırım, Klaus M. Wilcken
Temperate glaciers are very sensitive to changes in the global climate system and provide an excellent opportunity to obtain information on the timing and magnitude of palaeoclimatic changes. Numerous studies in the Mediterranean mountains indicate alternating glacial advance and retreat episodes during the last glacial cycle (110.8 ka to 11.7 ka ago). However, glacial chronology is often restricted
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Landscape evolution of the NW Himalayan rivers during the late Quaternary and their non-contemporaneity to the Harappan Civilization Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-28 Imran Khan, Rajiv Sinha, Andrew Sean Murray, Mayank Jain
A large perennial river system, the Ghaggar-Hakra, fed by the palaeo-Sutlej and palaeo-Yamuna Rivers from the west and east respectively, has been argued to have sustained the Bronze Age Harappan urban settlements (∼4.6–3.9 ka BP) in NW Himalayan foreland in India and Pakistan. However, it has been demonstrated by previous workers that palaeo-Sutlej was already defunct in this region by ∼8 ka, much
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Top-down control of climate on long-term interactions between fires, tree-cover and soil erosion in a Mediterranean mountain, Corsica Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-28 Bérangère Leys, Lauriane Ribas-Deulofeu, Laurent Dezileau, Christopher Carcaillet
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Advances and prerequisites for strontium isotope analyses through laser ablation in an aquatic context – Targeting Mid-Neolithic Baltic Sea harp seal (Pagophilus groenlandicus) mobility and breeding grounds Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-27 Adam Boethius, Jan Storå, Rudolf Gustavsson
Harp seals (), once present in the Baltic Sea, now stand extinct. During the Middle Neolithic period, they held significant dietary importance for the Pitted Ware Culture hunter-fisher-gatherers in Scandinavia. Because they are no longer available for ecological studies, little is known about their specific behavioural intricacies, such as diet, mobility, and reproductive strategies. Because of the
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Late Holocene climate dynamics in the Azores archipelago Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-27 Pedro M. Raposeiro, Catarina Ritter, Mark Abbott, Armand Hernandez, Adriano Pimentel, Everett Lasher, Mateusz Płóciennik, Violeta Berlajolli, Bartosz Kotrys, Xabier Pontevedra Pombal, Martin Souto, Santiago Giralt, Vitor Gonçalves
The location of the Azores Archipelago makes this group of islands an excellent setting for investigating past long-term temperature and precipitation changes in the central North Atlantic region. Here, we present a chironomid-based quantitative temperature reconstruction and a record of oxygen isotope composition of chironomid head capsules for the last ca. 1200 years, based on the Lake Prata core
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New fossil Bovidae (Mammalia: Artiodactyla) from Kromdraai Unit P, South Africa and their implication for biochronology and hominin palaeoecology Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-26 Raphaël Hanon, Jean-Baptiste Fourvel, Recognise Sambo, Nompumelelo Maringa, Christine Steininger, Bernhard Zipfel, José Braga
Kromdraai is a Plio-Pleistocene site located in the Cradle of Humankind (Gauteng Province, South Africa). It has produced diverse and abundant faunal assemblages and key hominin specimens like the holotype of and early . We provide the first taxonomic study of the Bovidae Family from the hominin-bearing Unit P at Kromdraai and discuss its potential to unravel its paleoecological context. We describe
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Multisequal aeolian deposition during the Holocene in southwestern Patagonia (51°S) was modulated by southern westerly wind intensity and vegetation type Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-23 V. Flores-Aqueveque, T. Villaseñor, C. Gómez-Fontealba, B.V. Alloway, S. Alfaro, H. Pizarro, L. Guerra, P.I. Moreno
We studied a multisequal soil succession (MSS) just south of Torres del Paine National Park (51°S), at the present-day core of the Southern Westerly Winds (SWW). The Río Serrano Section comprises paleosol horizons with associated intervening loess and sandy loess beds formed during the Holocene. Our record suggests strong and stable aeolian activity between ∼9.3–7.2 ka followed by a decline with centennial-scale
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Balkan Neanderthals: The Late Pleistocene palaeoecological sequence of Pešturina Cave (Niš, Serbia) Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-20 Juan Ochando, José S. Carrión, Donatella Magri, Ana B. Marín-Arroyo, Federico Di Rita, Manuel Munuera, Fabrizio Michelangeli, Gabriela Amorós, Stefan Milošević, Katarina Bogićević, Vesna Dimitrijević, Draženko Nenadić, Mirjana Roksandic, Dušan Mihailović
The Central Balkans are a key biogeographical region in Southern Europe, influenced by a central European-Mediterranean climate, which acted as a refugium for flora and fauna, and favored the dispersion of Neanderthals and migration of modern human populations during Late Glacial Period. This study presents pollen analyses of sediment and hyaena coprolites from Pešturina Cave in Serbia to reconstruct
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At an important tephrostratigraphic crossroads: cryptotephra in Late Glacial to Early Holocene lake sediments from the Carpathian Mountains, Romania Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-20 R.J. Kearney, P.G. Albert, R.A. Staff, E.K. Magyari, I. Pál, D. Veres, C.S. Lane, A. McGuire, C. Bronk Ramsey
Understanding the temporal and spatial environmental response to past climate change during the Last Glacial-Interglacial Transition (LGIT, 16-8 ka) across Europe relies on precise chronologies for palaeoenvironmental records. Tephra layers (volcanic ash) are a powerful chronological tool to synchronise disparate records across the continent. Yet, some regions remain overlooked in terms of cryptotephra
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Latest Pleistocene and Holocene primary producer communities and hydroclimate in Lake Victoria, eastern Africa Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-16 Giulia Wienhues, Andrea Lami, Stefano Bernasconi, Madalina Jaggi, Marina A. Morlock, Hendrik Vogel, Andrew S. Cohen, Colin J. Courtney Mustaphi, Oliver Heiri, Leighton King, Mary A. Kishe, Pavani Misra, Moritz Muschick, Nare Ngoepe, Blake Matthews, Ole Seehausen, Yunuen Temoltzin-Loranca, Willy Tinner, Martin Grosjean
The Lake Victoria ecosystem is emblematic of the catastrophic effects that human activities, particularly cultural eutrophication, can have on freshwater biodiversity. However, little is known about the long-term spatial and temporal pattern of aquatic primary paleo-production (PP) and producer communities in Lake Victoria and how these patterns relate to past climate variability, landscape evolution
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Multiproxy evidence for environmental stability in the Lesser Caucasus during the Late Pleistocene Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-16 Mariya Antonosyan, Patrick Roberts, Narek Aspaturyan, Satenik Mkrtchyan, Mary Lucas, Kseniia Boxleitner, Firas Jabbour, Anahit Hovhannisyan, Agata Cieślik, Lilit Sahakyan, Ara Avagyan, Robert Spengler, Andrew W. Kandel, Michael Petraglia, Nicole Boivin, Levon Yepiskoposyan, Noel Amano
The Lesser Caucasus, situated between Asia and Europe, has long been recognised as a key region for the study of human evolution in terms of the timing and routes of dispersal, as well as, ecological adaptations. In particular, scholars have argued whether stable environments persisted in the region throughout the last glaciation, serving as a refugium for temperate biota, likely attracting human settlement
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Salt detection in Neolithic pottery from Gornja Tuzla, BH Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-16 Ivana Pandžić, Rejhana Dervišević, Bojan Šarac
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Investigating speleothem magnetism as a proxy for dust mobilization and rainfall Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Kimberly Hess, Roger R. Fu, Samuel Piascik, Nicolas M. Stríkis, Ricardo I.F. Trindade, Tyler Kukla, Alec R. Brenner, Plinio Jaqueto, Michail I. Petaev, Francisco W. Cruz, Placido Fabricio Silva Melo Buarque, Carlos Pérez-Mejías, Hai Cheng
Commonly used speleothem-based paleoclimate proxies such as δO, δC, and trace element ratios are capable of high temporal resolution, but their interpretations are often ambiguous due to the conflated effects of multiple forcings. This complexity motivates the development of targeted proxies that can track specific local hydrological conditions. To this end, the concentration of ferromagnetic Fe-oxide
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Speleothem records from western Thailand indicate an early rapid shift of the Indian summer monsoon during the Younger Dryas termination Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Matthew J. Jacobson, Sakonvan Chawchai, Denis Scholz, Dana F.C. Riechelmann, Karin Holmgren, Hubert Vonhof, Xianfeng Wang, Guangxin Liu
Mainland Southeast Asia experiences complex and variable hydroclimatic conditions, mainly due to its location at the intersection of Asian monsoon subsystems. Predicting future changes requires an in-depth understanding of paleoclimatic conditions that is currently hindered by a paucity of records in some regions. In this paper, we present the first speleothem stable isotope records from western Thailand
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Mineralogical and magnetic variations of periglacial loess in SE Tibet reveal mid-Pleistocene expansion of Tibetan glacial activity Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Zhaoying Ma, Jinbo Zan, Friedrich Heller, Thomas Stevens, Xue Xiao, Xiaomin Fang, Genhou Wang, Weilin Zhang, Maohua Shen, Yuao Zhang
The formation and evolution of the cryosphere on the Tibetan Plateau is of great significance in understanding the Earth's carbon and climatic system. Periglacial loess deposits in southeastern Tibet offer a means to constrain this history as they contain critical information on glacial grinding and frost shattering processes in high-altitude mountain regions through time, which yield lithogenic fractions
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Tropical forcing and ENSO dominate Holocene climates in South Africa's southern Cape Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Brian M. Chase, Arnoud Boom, Andrew S. Carr, Paula J. Reimer
This paper explores the Holocene climatic dynamics of South Africa's southern Cape, a region that supports a large proportion of the Greater Cape Floristic Region and contains an array of important archaeological sites. While South African climates are generally characterised by marked rainfall seasonality, the southern Cape is currently situated at the interface between tropical and temperate climate
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Chronology of Pleistocene sedimentary cycles in the western Mediterranean Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Laura del Valle, Alida Timar-Gabor, Joan J. Fornós
This study focuses on the sedimentological and stratigraphic description and chronology of Pleistocene coastal deposits on the Pityusic Islands (Balearic Islands, Spain). These deposits show evidence of interference between processes characteristic of alluvial, marine, and aeolian environments. Optically stimulated luminescence dating of aeolian levels indicates that deposition took place from the
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Anatomically modern human dispersals into Europe during MIS 3: Climate stability, paleogeography and habitat suitability Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-12 Simon Paquin, Benjamin Albouy, Masa Kageyama, Mathieu Vrac, Ariane Burke
The initial large-scale dispersal of Anatomically Modern Humans (AMHs) into Europe, associated with the Aurignacian technocomplex, occurred during Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS 3), a critically unstable climatic period. The impact of climate change (millennial-scale Dansgaard-Oeschger events) and climate variability (annual and seasonal variation) on the mobility and initial dispersal of AMHs on the
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ENSO-driven hydroclimate changes in central Tibetan Plateau since middle Holocene: Evidence from Zhari Namco’s lake sediments Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-11 Changrun Wu, Guangxin Liu, Lu Cong, Xiangzhong Li, Xiangjun Liu, Yuning Liu, Deyan Wu, Yuyan Zhang, Die Bai
The Tibetan Plateau, often referred to as the “Asian Water Tower”, holds immense significance as a critical water source for billions of people in surrounding regions. Its unique location and extreme environmental conditions contribute to the formation of some of the world largest lakes, crucial components of the regional water cycle. These lakes not only store vast freshwater resources but also play
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Interactions between local glaciers and adjacent grounded Ross Sea ice in the Royal Society Range, Antarctica Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-10 Maraina Miles, Brenda Hall, George Denton
The Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) has the potential to exert a major control on future global sea level. Here, we gain insight into the response of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) to changing climate through assessment of ice-sheet behavior during and since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) along the western coast of McMurdo Sound. We examine whether expansion of grounded ice in this sector of the Ross Embayment
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Holocene changes in the position of the Southern Hemisphere Westerlies recorded by long-distance transport of pollen to the Kerguelen Islands Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-08 Maaike Zwier, Willem G.M. van der Bilt, Tobias Schneider, William J. D'Andrea, Jostein Bakke, Nathalie Van der Putten, Anne E. Bjune
The Southern Hemisphere Westerlies (SHW) are a vital part of the Southern Hemisphere's coupled ocean-atmosphere system and play an important role in the global climate system. The SHW affect the upwelling of carbon-rich deep water and exchange of CO from the ocean to the atmosphere by driving the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. On seasonal to millennial timescales, changes in the strength and position
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Abrupt cooling of cold seasons at the middle-late Holocene transition revealed by alkenone records from North China Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-08 Jiaju Zhao, Jianbao Liu, Jinzhao Liu, Shengqian Chen, Aifeng Zhou, Lin Chen, Zhiping Zhang, Zhongwei Shen, Jie Chen, Yunning Cao, Jing Hu, Qianwen Zhang
In saline lakes, the paleoenvironmental interpretation of long-chain alkenones (LCAs) is difficult due to the inputs of Isochrysidales Group 2i, which are ice-related bloomers. Here, we perform detailed analysis of LCAs and long-chain alkenoates in sediment cores from Lake Daihai in north China. During the late Holocene, alkenone-inferred temperatures and the Group 2i species abundance indicate a long-term
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The late occurrence of specialized hunter-gatherer occupation of tropical rainforests in Pang Mapha, northwestern Thailand Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-08 Kantapon Suraprasit, Rasmi Shoocongdej, Athiwat Wattanapituksakul, Kanoknart Chintakanon, Hervé Bocherens
Two archaeological sites, Tham Lod and Ban Rai rockshelters, in highland Pang Mapha, Mae Hong Son Province in northwestern Thailand have yielded several late Pleistocene to Holocene human and animal remains associated with the Hoabinhian technocomplex. Previously, stable carbon isotope compositions of human and faunal tooth enamel samples from Tham Lod Rockshelter have suggested a forest-grassland
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Rainforest response to glacial terminations before and after human arrival in Lutruwita (Tasmania) Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-08 S. Cooley, M.-S. Fletcher, A. Lisé-Pronovost, J.-H. May, M. Mariani, P.S. Gadd, D.A. Hodgson, H. Heijnis
We compare vegetation changes across glacial Terminations I and II in lake sediments from western Tasmania (Lutruwita). The data reveal marked differences in the rainforest response to the transition from glacial to interglacial climates before and after human arrival into Lutruwita at c. 43 ka and the influence of fire management on the landscape.
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Geochemical relationships between shells of the gastropod Gyraulus convexiusculus and modern water bodies on the Tibetan Plateau, and their paleoenvironmental significance Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-07 Feng Chen, Jiao-Yan Zhao, Jiao Ren, Jin-Liang Feng, Hai-Ping Hu, Feng-Mei Ban, Le-Le Pei, Yu-Zhi Zhang, Kun-Ying Wang
Fossil shells of the gastropod sp. are widespread in the sediments of wetlands and lakes, and in fluvial and lacustrine depositional sequences on the Tibetan Plateau (TP). Although aragonite shells of sp. are a potentially valuable archive of information on environmental changes, the living environment of sp. and the significance of its shell geochemistry (e.g., Sr/Ca, Mg/Ca, δC δO) are unknown or
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A new insight of the MIS 3 Dansgaard-Oeschger climate oscillations in western Europe from the study of a Belgium isotopically equilibrated speleothem Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Marion Peral, Marta Marchegiano, Sophie Verheyden, Steven Goderis, Tom Van Helden, Frank Vanhaecke, Thibaut Van Acker, Xue Jia, Hai Cheng, Jens Fiebig, Tiffanie Fourcade, Christophe Snoeck, Philippe Claeys
The Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 records abrupt transitions from cold stadial to temperate interstadial climate conditions, termed Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) events. Reconstructing these rapid climate changes is crucial for documenting the prevailing climatic conditions in Europe during the extinction of the Neanderthals. However, only few continental records are available to define the continental climatic
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Reconstructing warm-season temperatures using brGDGTs and assessing biases in Holocene temperature records in northern Fennoscandia Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Gerard A. Otiniano, Trevor J. Porter, Michael A. Phillips, Sari Juutinen, Jan B. Weckström, Maija P. Heikkilä
Understanding Holocene climate variability is crucial for predicting future climate change, which will disproportionally affect high-latitude regions. Summer temperature (T) reconstructions in regions such as northern Finland are mainly derived from microfossil data. We reconstructed T spanning the interval 10-1 cal ka BP using branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (brGDGTs) from lake-sediment
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Stratigraphy and ice sheet dynamics of the greater Lake Melville region Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Jaia Syvitski, Alexandre Normandeau, Patrick Lajeunesse
This quantitative reanalysis reviews the high-fidelity record of ice-sheet dynamics and ensuing sediment supply to the greater Lake Melville region of Labrador, Canada. The environment is strategically located close to a major ice divide of the Quebec-Labrador Dome (QLD) of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. More than 5000 km of acoustic records are examined along with multibeam bathymetric data acquired over
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Mid-to Late Holocene East Antarctic ice-core tephrochronology: Implications for reconstructing volcanic eruptions and assessing their climatic impacts over the last 5,500 years Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Peter M. Abbott, Joseph R. McConnell, Nathan J. Chellman, Sepp Kipfstuhl, Maria Hörhold, Johannes Freitag, Eliza Cook, William Hutchison, Michael Sigl
Ice cores are powerful archives for reconstructing volcanism as they contain both soluble (i.e. aerosols) and insoluble (i.e. tephra) products of volcanic eruptions and for more recent periods have high-precision annually resolved chronologies. The identification and geochemical analysis of cryptotephra in these cores can provide their volcanic source and latitude of injection, complementing records
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Not seen before. Unveiling depositional context and Mammuthus meridionalis exploitation at Fuente Nueva 3 (Orce, southern Iberia) through taphonomy and microstratigraphy Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-04 José Yravedra, Lloyd A. Courtenay, Mario Gutiérrez-Rodríguez, Juan Francisco Reinoso-Gordo, Juha Saarinen, Natalia Égüez, Carmen Luzón, Juan José Rodríguez-Alba, José A. Solano, Stefania Titton, Eva Montilla-Jiménez, José Cámara-Donoso, Darío Herranz-Rodrigo, Verónica Estaca, Alexia Serrano-Ramos, Gabriela Amorós, Beatriz Azanza, Hervé Bocherens, Daniel DeMiguel, Ana Fagoaga, Antonio García-Alix, Juan
Meat consumption by early hominins is a hotly debated issue. A key question concerns their access to large mammal carcasses, including megafauna. Currently, the evidence of anthropic cut marks on proboscidean bones older than -or close to- 1.0 Ma are restricted to the archaeological sites of Dmanisi (Georgia), Olduvai (Tanzania), Gona (Ethiopia), Olorgesailie (Kenya) and La Boella (Spain). During an
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Deep learning identification of anthropogenic modifications on a carnivore remain suggests use of hyena pelts by Neanderthals in the Navalmaíllo rock shelter (Pinilla del Valle, Spain) Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-04 Abel Moclán, Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo, Rosa Huguet, Marcos Pizarro-Monzo, Juan Luis Arsuaga, Alfredo Pérez-González, Enrique Baquedano
The identification of anthropogenically-modified carnivoran bones in archaeological sites is rare in Pleistocene contexts, especially in the most ancient periods. Neanderthal groups have clearly shown a great variety of subsistence activities and the use of carnivoran resources, until rare, is also present in some archaeological sites.
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Fecal biomarkers in Italian anthropogenic soil horizons and deposits from Middle Ages and bronze age Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-04 M. Bortolini, C. Nicosia, E. Argiriadis, G. Pojana, Y. Devos, D. Battistel
Archaeological excavations in urban and rural contexts often uncover dark homogeneous anthropogenic deposits, soils and soil horizons, known as Dark Earths, Cultural Layers and Anthrosols. Major scientific questions arise about the processes that lead to the formation of these soils and deposits, as they are often related to a complex combination of environmental, climatic, and anthropogenic factors
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Barrow Island lithic scatters: A unique record of occupation patterns on the North West Shelf before insularisation Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-01 David W. Zeanah, Peter M. Veth, Mark E. Basgall, Dave Glover, Ryan Bradshaw, Kane Ditchfield, Fiona Hook, Ian Seah, Buurabalayji Thalanyji Aboriginal Corporation
A key inquiry in Pleistocene human coastal adaptations asks whether coastlines were productive littoral patches that were consistently utilized over time or did fluctuating sea levels make them marginally productive patches that only supplemented terrestrially oriented foraging. Investigating this issue is challenging because rising glacio-eustatic sea levels submerged most evidence of Pleistocene
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Diversity of obsidian sources in the northwest Anatolian site of Bahçelievler and the dynamics of Neolithisation Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-01 Hasan Can Gemici, Çiğdem Atakuman, Neyir Kolankaya-Bostancı, Erkan Fidan
Recent excavations at the site of Bahçelievler (in modern Bilecik, northwest Anatolia) revealed a Neolithic settlement that was established during the late 8th/early 7th millennium BCE and continuously occupied until ca. 6000 BCE. One of the earliest Neolithic villages known in the region, its obsidian assemblage offers a good opportunity to investigate regional networks and obtain a better understanding
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Ecospace occupancy and disparity in Pleistocene large carnivorans of Europe and implications for hominin dispersal and ecological role Quat. Sci. Rev. (IF 4.0) Pub Date : 2024-02-29 Alessio Iannucci
The evolution of large mammal faunas during the Pleistocene of Europe has been widely investigated using taxonomical and/or ecological-functional categories, with special emphasis on the implications for reconstructing hominin dispersal and ecological role. Here, an ecospace modelling approach is for the first time applied to Pleistocene carnivorans of Europe. Examining ecospace occupancy and disparity