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Human footprints provide snapshot of last interglacial ecology in the Arabian interior
- Source :
- Science Advances, eaba8940
- Publication Year :
- 2020
-
Abstract
- The nature of human dispersals out of Africa has remained elusive because of the poor resolution of paleoecological data in direct association with remains of the earliest non-African people. Here, we report hominin and non-hominin mammalian tracks from an ancient lake deposit in the Arabian Peninsula, dated within the last interglacial. The findings, it is argued, likely represent the oldest securely dated evidence for Homo sapiens in Arabia. The paleoecological evidence indicates a well-watered semi-arid grassland setting during human movements into the Nefud Desert of Saudi Arabia. We conclude that visitation to the lake was transient, likely serving as a place to drink and to forage, and that late Pleistocene human and mammalian migrations and landscape use patterns in Arabia were inexorably linked.<br />peer-reviewed
- Subjects :
- 010506 paleontology
Pleistocene
Geology, Stratigraphic -- Pleistocene
Human beings -- Migrations -- History
Prehistoric peoples -- Arabian Peninsula
01 natural sciences
03 medical and health sciences
Peninsula
Out of africa
parasitic diseases
Paleoecology -- Arabian Peninsula
Research Articles
030304 developmental biology
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
0303 health sciences
geography
Multidisciplinary
geography.geographical_feature_category
Ancient lake
Ecology
SciAdv r-articles
Paleontology
15. Life on land
humanities
Homo sapiens
Interglacial
Physical anthropology -- Arabian Peninsula
geographic locations
Research Article
Subjects
Details
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Science Advances, eaba8940
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....9dfd93ae3ff638763b47dc002861a871