Gold Miners on the Trail of the Earliest Humans in Eastern Saharan Africa. Investigating the Acheulean and Middle Stone Age in Sudanese Nubia

Masojć, Mirosław; Nassr, Ahmed; Kim, Ju Yong; Ehlert, Maciej; Michalec, Grzegorz; Krupa‐Kurzynowska, Joanna; Sohn, Young Kwan; Andrieux, Eric; Armitage, Simon; Szmit, Marcin; Kim, Jin Cheul; Kim, Ji Sung; Cendrowska, Marzena; Dreczko, Ewa; Moska, Piotr; Kim, Kyeong Ja; Choi, Yeon-Seok

doi:10.1163/21915784-20210003

Cited by 7 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 14 publications

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“…Such sediment archives exist in eastern Sudan along the Atbara River, which today has its headwaters in the northern Ethiopian Plateau and is the last major tributary of the Nile before it flows through the Sahara. Pleistocene deposits along the Atbara have produced mammalian fossils and stone tools from the Acheulean and Middle Stone Age, which indicate that the Atbara River or its precursors and the surrounding floodplains provided suitable habitats for terrestrial mammal communities including hominins (Abbate et al, 2010;Masojć et al, 2019Masojć et al, , 2021Ehlert et al, 2022). Additionally, these sediments host fossil soils (paleosols) that provide information on climatic and environmental conditions during deposition.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quaternary alluvial paleosols of the Atbara River, eastern Sudan: description and paleoenvironments

Mohammednoor,

Bibi,

Eisawi

et al. 2023

J Quaternary Science

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Quaternary climatic changes in the Nile Basin and their effects on the evolution of African mammals and vegetation are poorly understood, particularly for the last 1 Ma. Pleistocene (~230 to <17 ka) alluvial sediments exposed along the middle stretches of the Atbara River in eastern Sudan are rich in fossil vertebrates and are ideal for paleoenvironmental reconstruction during this time interval. We performed petrographic, mineralogical and geochemical analyses on the middle Atbara paleosols to reconstruct the paleoclimate and paleolandscape. We describe Aridisols/Calcisols characterized by calcretes and containing gypsum and halite, and Vertisols with pedogenic slickensides and a relatively large amount of smectite. The paleosols indicate that the study area transitioned from an arid to semi‐arid climate during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS)7/6, to a more humid climate during MIS5, and then a return to more arid conditions during MIS2. The studied paleosols likely supported a range of grassland and wooded grassland savanna habitats. Our study confirms that the Atbara River Valley provided favorable living conditions for Pleistocene large mammal communities including Homo, potentially facilitating dispersals out of Africa through the Nile corridor.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%