Universität zu Köln

Blinkhorn, James ORCID: 0000-0002-9399-5515, Timbrell, Lucy ORCID: 0000-0003-1229-554X, Grove, Matt and Scerri, Eleanor M. L. (2022). Evaluating refugia in recent human evolution in Africa. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B-Biol. Sci., 377 (1849). LONDON: ROYAL SOC. ISSN 1471-2970

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Abstract

Homo sapiens have adapted to an incredible diversity of habitats around the globe. This capacity to adapt to different landscapes is clearly expressed within Africa, with Late Pleistocene Homo sapiens populations occupying savannahs, woodlands, coastlines and mountainous terrain. As the only area of the world where Homo sapiens have clearly persisted through multiple glacial-interglacial cycles, Africa is the only continent where classic refugia models can be formulated and tested to examine and describe changing patterns of past distributions and human phylogeographies. The potential role of refugia has frequently been acknowledged in the Late Pleistocene palaeoanthropological literature, yet explicit identification of potential refugia has been limited by the patchy nature of palaeoenvironmental and archaeological records, and the low temporal resolution of climate or ecological models. Here, we apply potential climatic thresholds on human habitation, rooted in ethnographic studies, in combination with high-resolution model datasets for precipitation and biome distributions to identify persistent refugia spanning the Late Pleistocene (130-10 ka). We present two alternate models suggesting that between 27% and 66% of Africa may have provided refugia to Late Pleistocene human populations, and examine variability in precipitation, biome and ecotone distributions within these refugial zones. This article is part of the theme issue 'Tropical forests in the deep human past'.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Blinkhorn, James UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0002-9399-5515 UNSPECIFIED Timbrell, Lucy UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0003-1229-554X UNSPECIFIED Grove, Matt UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Scerri, Eleanor M. L. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-682691
DOI:	10.1098/rstb.2020.0485
Journal or Publication Title:	Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B-Biol. Sci.
Volume:	377
Number:	1849
Date:	2022
Publisher:	ROYAL SOC
Place of Publication:	LONDON
ISSN:	1471-2970
Language:	English
Faculty:	Unspecified
Divisions:	Unspecified
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language MIDDLE STONE-AGE; LATE PLEISTOCENE; ENVIRONMENTAL-CHANGE; HUNTER-GATHERERS; HUMAN ORIGINS; VARIABILITY; HOMO; OCCUPATION; ARCHAEOLOGY; DISPERSAL Multiple languages Biology Multiple languages
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/68269