Paleo-ENSO influence on African environments and early modern humans

Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr; William D Gosling; Ralf Vogelsang; André Bahr; Eleanor M L Scerri; Asfawossen Asrat; Andrew S Cohen; Walter Düsing; Verena Foerster; Henry F Lamb; Mark A Maslin; Helen M Roberts; Frank Schäbitz; Martin H Trauth

doi:10.1073/pnas.2018277118

Paleo-ENSO influence on African environments and early modern humans

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Jun 8;118(23):e2018277118. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2018277118.

Authors

Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr^{1

2}, William D Gosling³, Ralf Vogelsang⁴, André Bahr², Eleanor M L Scerri^{4

5

6}, Asfawossen Asrat^{7

8}, Andrew S Cohen⁹, Walter Düsing¹⁰, Verena Foerster¹¹, Henry F Lamb^{12

13}, Mark A Maslin^{14

15}, Helen M Roberts¹², Frank Schäbitz¹¹, Martin H Trauth¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Geosciences, University of Potsdam, 14469 Potsdam, Germany; kabothbahr@uni-potsdam.de.
² Institute of Earth Sciences, Heidelberg University, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany.
³ Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam, 1098 XE Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
⁴ Department of Prehistoric Archaeology, University of Cologne, 50931 Cologne, Germany.
⁵ Pan-African Evolution Research Group, Max Planck Institute for the Science in Human History, 07745 Jena, Germany.
⁶ Department of Classics and Archaeology, University of Malta, MSD2080, Msida, Malta.
⁷ School of Earth Sciences, Addis Ababa University, 2QM7+CF Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
⁸ Department of Mining and Geological Engineering, Botswana International University of Science and Technology, Private Bag 16, Palapye, Botswana.
⁹ Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721.
¹⁰ Institute of Geosciences, University of Potsdam, 14469 Potsdam, Germany.
¹¹ Institute of Geography Education, University of Cologne, 50931 Cologne, Germany.
¹² Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth SY23 3DB, United Kingdom.
¹³ Department of Botany, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin D02 PN40, Ireland.
¹⁴ Department of Geography, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom.
¹⁵ Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, 1165 Copenhagen, Denmark.

Abstract

In this study, we synthesize terrestrial and marine proxy records, spanning the past 620 ky, to decipher pan-African climate variability and its drivers and potential linkages to hominin evolution. We find a tight correlation between moisture availability across Africa to El Niño Southern Ocean oscillation (ENSO) variability, a manifestation of the Walker Circulation, that was most likely driven by changes in Earth's eccentricity. Our results demonstrate that low-latitude insolation was a prominent driver of pan-African climate change during the Middle to Late Pleistocene. We argue that these low-latitude climate processes governed the dispersion and evolution of vegetation as well as mammals in eastern and western Africa by increasing resource-rich and stable ecotonal settings thought to have been important to early modern humans.

Keywords: African paleoclimate; Walker and Hadley circulation; hominin evolution; orbital forcing.

Publication types

Historical Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Africa
Biological Evolution*
Climate Change / history*
El Nino-Southern Oscillation / history*
History, Ancient
Humans