Archaeological sites and palaeoenvironments of Pleistocene West Africa

The Middle Stone Age of Atlantic Africa: A critical review

“…2) (Beck et al, 2018;Burgess et al, 2006;Chen and Chen, 2013). Although parts of the dense tropical rainforest, of the hot dry deserts and of the highest mountains may have acted as barriers for mobility (Blinkhorn et al, 2022;Blome et al, 2012;Fitzhugh and Habu, 2002;Mirazo ´n Lahr and Foley, 1998;Scerri et al, 2018;Schaebitz et al, 2021;Timbrell et al, 2022), these environments may have provided contiguous clusters of resources, allowing human mobility, diffusion of cultural traits, and of DNA (Blinkhorn et al, 2022;Callaway, 2012;Cerasoni et al, 2022; Dandoli 1; 10) Dandoli 2; 11) Kokolo 2; 12) Kokolo 3 C3; 3) Oumounaama; Chan et al, 2019;Chen et al, 2000;Gonder et al, 2007;Hammer et al, 2011;Lachance et al, 2012;Niang et al, 2018;Scerri et al, 2018Scerri et al, , 2019.…”

“…Across the bibliography above it is possible to see that the great majority of the sites is composed of artefacts clustered or scattered at the surface, with few studies including geoarchaeological, archaeobotanical analysis, and radiometric dates (Douze et al, 2021). Comparatively, caves and rockshelters with stratified deposits and fossil remains are more rare (Cerasoni et al, 2022;de Matos et al, 2021b;Pickford and Senut, 2010) although Later Stone Age rock art sites and correlated LSA horizons may have potential MSA layers (Fernandes, 2014;Gomes et al, 2013;Guilhem et al, 2021;Nankela, 2020;Rosina et al, 2018). In Senegal, Mali, Ghana, and Burkina Faso, long standing research programs have made possible to carry out in-depth investigations on several sites, providing detailed knowledge of the material cultures and paleoenvironments of these areas (Chevrier et al, 2016;Douze et al, 2021;Lebrun et al, 2016;Lespez et al, 2011;Niang et al, 2020Niang et al, , 2018Rasse et al, 2020Rasse et al, , 2012Rasse et al, , 2004Schmid et al, 2022;Soriano, 2003;Soriano et al, 2010).…”

“…Presently, models for the emergence of the H. sapiens in the fossil record, and our understanding of behavioral and cognitive development towards Modern Human Behavior traits relies on two clusters separated by more than 10,000 km. Atlantic Africa MSA sites are known in each modern biome, with a higher number in the savannas and a lower number in tropical forest and mangrove lowlands (Cerasoni et al, 2022). Recently, several projects from Senegal to Namibia, combining fieldwork with state-of-the-art multidisciplinary analysis, are bringing new high-resolution and high-impact results and ideas at an unprecedented pass.…”

pastclim 1.2: an R package to easily access and use paleoclimatic reconstructions

“…The availability of such data paved the way for a large number of research questions among many disciplines, i.e. ecology (Miller et al 2021b, VanBuren and Jarzyna 2022), paleoecology (Leonardi et al 2018, 2022, Somveille et al 2020, Chen et al 2021, Schap et al 2021, Thorup et al 2021, Medina‐Castañeda et al 2022, Reade et al 2022), conservation (Beyer and Manica 2021), population genetics (Maisano Delser et al 2021, Miller et al 2021a, Warmuth et al 2021), archaeology (Betti et al 2020, Racimo et al 2020, Beyer et al 2021, Krzyzanska et al 2021, Bradshaw et al 2022, Cerasoni et al 2022, Park and Marwick 2022, Timbrell et al 2022), macroevolution of different taxa, including the genus Homo (Saupe et al 2014, Will et al 2021, Fordham et al 2022, Timmermann et al 2022, Troyer et al 2022), anthropology (Leonardi et al 2017, Padilla‐Iglesias et al 2022) and linguistics (Beyer et al 2019).…”

pastclim: an R package to easily access and use paleoclimatic reconstructions

“…e . ecology (Miller et al 2021a, b), paleoecology (Leonardi et al 2018, 2020, Somveille et al 2020, Chen et al 2021, Schap et al 2021, Thorup et al 2021), conservation (Beyer and Manica 2021), population genetics (Maisano Delser et al 2021), archaeology (Racimo et al 2020, Betti et al 2020, Beyer et al 2021, Krzyzanska et al 2021, Park and Marwick 2022, Cerasoni et al 2022, Timbrell et al 2022), the evolution of the genus Homo (Will et al 2021, Timmermann et al 2022), anthropology (Leonardi et al 2017, Padilla-Iglesias et al 2021) and linguistics (Beyer et al 2019).…”