Humid periods in southern Arabia: Windows of opportunity for modern human dispersal

Rosenberg, Thomas M.; Preusser, Frank; Fleitmann, Dominik; Schwalb, Antje; Penkman, Kirsty; Schmid, Timo; Al-Shanti, Mahmoud A.; Kadi, Khalid; Matter, Albert

doi:10.1130/g32281.1

Cited by 163 publications

(182 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Burns et al, 2001;Fleitmann et al, 2011), the terrestrial record at Aqabah provides compelling evidence for an early MIS 3 incursion of monsoon rainfall into the Arabian interior. Glennie and Singhvi, 2002;Fleitmann et al, 2003Fleitmann et al, , 2009Preusser, 2009;Atkinson et al, 2011), means that sediments accumulated during an early MIS 3 humid phase, would have been subject to considerable deflation and reworking following sustained aridity.…”

Section: Palaeoclimatic Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additionally, previous evidence for increased humidity during MIS 3 (e.g. McClure, 1976McClure, , 1978McClure, , 1984Garrard et al, 1981;Schulz and Witney, 1986), has recently been called into question (Rosenberg et al, 2011(Rosenberg et al, , 2012) and as such, radiocarbon chronologies for this time period are viewed with caution.…”

Section: Palaeoclimatic Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previously, incursions of the ITCZ and associated monsoon rainfall belt into Arabia have been viewed as predominantly characteristic of interglacial periods and substages MIS5c and MIS5 a (i.e. Burns et al, 1998;Burns et al, 2001;Fleitmann et al, 2003Fleitmann et al, , 2011Fleitmann and Matter, 2009), with the period between MIS 4 and MIS 2 typified by arid to hyper-arid conditions. Additionally, previous evidence for increased humidity during MIS 3 (e.g.…”

Section: Palaeoclimatic Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While much of of lacustrine sediments from Mundafan and Khujaymah (Rosenberg et al, 2011) utilising Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL), indicates that lake formation within the region occurred ca. 125 ka (MIS 5e), ca.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An early MIS 3 pluvial phase in Southeast Arabia: Climatic and archaeological implications

Parton

Farrant

Leng

et al. 2013

Quaternary International

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Climatic changes in Arabia are of critical importance to our understanding of both monsoon variability and the dispersal of anatomically modern humans (AMH) out of Africa. The timing of dispersal is associated with the occurrence of pluvial periods during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5 (ca. 130-74ka), after which, arid conditions between ca. 74 and 10.5 ka are thought to have restricted further migration and range expansion within the Arabian interior. Whilst a number of records indicate that this phase of aridity was punctuated by an increase in monsoon strength during MIS 3, uncertainties regarding the precision of terrestrial records and suitability of marine archives as records of precipitation, mean that the occurrence of this pluvial remains debated. Here we present evidence from a series of relict lake deposits within southeastern Arabia, which formed at the onset of MIS 3 (ca. 61-58 ka). At this time, the incursion of monsoon rainfall into the Arabian interior activated a network of channels associated with an alluvial fan system along the western flanks of the Hajar Mountains, leading to lake formation. Multiproxy evidence indicates that precipitation increases intermittently recharged fluvial systems within the region, leading to lake expansion in distal fan zones. Conversely, decreased precipitation led to reduced channel flow, lake contraction and a shift to saline conditions. These findings are in contrast to the many other palaeoclimatic records from Arabia, which suggest that during MIS 3, the latitudinal position of the monsoon was substantially further south and did not penetrate the peninsula. Additionally, the occurrence of increased rainfall at this time challenges the notion that the climate of Arabia following MIS 5 was too harsh to permit the further range expansion of indigenous communities.

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Section: Palaeoclimatic Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Palaeoclimatic Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Palaeoclimatic Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An early MIS 3 pluvial phase in Southeast Arabia: Climatic and archaeological implications

Parton

Farrant

Leng

et al. 2013

Quaternary International

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“…(1) Some three-quarters of the more than 3 million km 2 total area of the Arabian Peninsula are covered by deserts, where the opportunities for recovering Pleistocene stratified archaeological contexts are limited to isolated paleolakes Rosenberg et al, 2011Rosenberg et al, , 2012. (2) A large portion of the Arabian Pleistocene shorelines and its potential archaeological record are now submerged, in particular for the time periods corresponding to the phases of marine regression, when the distance between the sides of the Red Sea was the most favorable for sea crossing (Bailey et al, 2007;Bailey, 2009;Lambeck et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural and human dynamics in southern Arabia at the end of the Middle Paleolithic

Delagnes

Crassard

Bertrán

et al. 2013

Quaternary International

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a b s t r a c tThe Arabian Peninsula has long been considered as a region devoid of long-term human settlement until the Holocene period, as a result of drastic climatic changes throughout the Pleistocene. It might be expected that the area was deserted during hyper-arid and arid periods, and populated by new migrant groups during humid events, according to a "push and pull" phenomenon. Although this scenario may be perfectly valid for a large part of the Peninsula, a set of recent data points to the persistence of populations in several regions, which may have served as refugia for human groups who developed their own technological traditions. Such a scenario is suggested by:(1) The succession of dense human occupations under arid conditions between ca. 60 and 50 ka, in the Wadi Surdud basin, a small sedimentary basin in the foothills of the Yemeni Western Highlands. This archaeological site complex encompasses several successive human settlements characterized by a Middle Paleolithic tradition which significantly differs from the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age contemporaneous traditions from neighboring regions; (2) The regional diversity of the Middle Paleolithic throughout the Saharo-Arabian arid belt during MIS 3, expressed by an array of local techno-typological facies that likely relate to distant and disconnected source regions where populations contracted when climate worsened.Together with a set of high-resolution archaeological contexts recently discovered in the Arabian Peninsula and dated to MIS 5, these data suggest that the major human expansion waves which occurred in the region during the Upper Pleistocene are correlated with the wet phases of MIS 5, while populations probably contracted into a few refugia areas at the beginning of MIS 3.

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Weakening and strengthening of the Indian monsoon during Heinrich events and Dansgaard-Oeschger oscillations

et al. 2014

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The Dansgaard-Oeschger oscillations and Heinrich events described in North Atlantic sediments and Greenland ice are expressed in the climate of the tropics, for example, as documented in Arabian Sea sediments. Given the strength of this teleconnection, we seek to reconstruct its range of environmental impacts. We present geochemical and sedimentological data from core SO130-289KL from the Indus submarine slope spanning the last~80 kyr. Elemental and grain size analyses consistently indicate that interstadials are characterized by an increased contribution of fluvial suspension from the Indus River. In contrast, stadials are characterized by an increased contribution of aeolian dust from the Arabian Peninsula. Decadal-scale shifts at climate transitions, such as onsets of interstadials, were coeval with changes in productivity-related proxies. Heinrich events stand out as especially dry and dusty events, indicating a dramatically weakened Indian summer monsoon, potentially increased winter monsoon circulation, and increased aridity on the Arabian Peninsula. This finding is consistent with other paleoclimate evidence for continental aridity in the northern tropics during these events. Our results strengthen the evidence that circum-North Atlantic temperature variations translate to hydrological shifts in the tropics, with major impacts on regional environmental conditions such as rainfall, river discharge, aeolian dust transport, and ocean margin anoxia.

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Humid periods in southern Arabia: Windows of opportunity for modern human dispersal

Cited by 163 publications

References 49 publications

An early MIS 3 pluvial phase in Southeast Arabia: Climatic and archaeological implications

An early MIS 3 pluvial phase in Southeast Arabia: Climatic and archaeological implications

Cultural and human dynamics in southern Arabia at the end of the Middle Paleolithic

Weakening and strengthening of the Indian monsoon during Heinrich events and Dansgaard-Oeschger oscillations

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