Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES-CERCA), Tarragona, Spain.
Departament d'Història i Història de l'Art, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Tarragona, Spain.
Nat Commun. 2024 Oct 4;15(1):8393. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-52672-0.
The earliest archaeological evidence from northern Africa dates to ca. 2.44 Ma. Nevertheless, the palaeoenvironmental setting of hominins living in this part of the continent at the Plio-Pleistocene transition remains poorly documented, particularly in comparison to eastern and southern Africa. The Guefaït-4 fossil site in eastern Morocco sheds light on our knowledge of palaeoenvironments in northern Africa. Our study reveals the oldest known presence of C plants in the northern part of the continent in a mosaic landscape that includes open grasslands, forested areas, wetlands, and seasonal aridity. This diverse landscape and resource availability likely facilitated the occupation of the region by mammals, including potentially hominins. Our regional-scale study provides a complementary perspective to global-scale studies and highlights the importance of considering the diversity of microhabitats within a given region when studying species-dispersal dynamics.
最早的北非考古证据可以追溯到大约 244 万年前。然而，在更新世过渡期生活在该大陆这一地区的人类的古环境背景仍然记录甚少，与东非和南非相比更是如此。摩洛哥东部的 Guefaït-4 化石遗址为我们了解北非的古环境提供了线索。我们的研究揭示了在包括开阔草原、森林地区、湿地和季节性干旱地区在内的镶嵌景观中，该大陆北部已知最古老的 C 植物的存在。这种多样化的景观和资源的可用性可能为包括可能的人类在内的哺乳动物在该地区的生存提供了便利。我们的区域尺度研究为全球尺度研究提供了一个补充视角，并强调了在研究物种扩散动态时，考虑给定区域内微生境多样性的重要性。
