| Literature DB >> 22826222 |
John Lowe1, Nick Barton, Simon Blockley, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Victoria L Cullen, William Davies, Clive Gamble, Katharine Grant, Mark Hardiman, Rupert Housley, Christine S Lane, Sharen Lee, Mark Lewis, Alison MacLeod, Martin Menzies, Wolfgang Müller, Mark Pollard, Catherine Price, Andrew P Roberts, Eelco J Rohling, Chris Satow, Victoria C Smith, Chris B Stringer, Emma L Tomlinson, Dustin White, Paul Albert, Ilenia Arienzo, Graeme Barker, Dusan Boric, Antonio Carandente, Lucia Civetta, Catherine Ferrier, Jean-Luc Guadelli, Panagiotis Karkanas, Margarita Koumouzelis, Ulrich C Müller, Giovanni Orsi, Jörg Pross, Mauro Rosi, Ljiljiana Shalamanov-Korobar, Nikolay Sirakov, Polychronis C Tzedakis.
Abstract
Marked changes in human dispersal and development during the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition have been attributed to massive volcanic eruption and/or severe climatic deterioration. We test this concept using records of volcanic ash layers of the Campanian Ignimbrite eruption dated to ca. 40,000 y ago (40 ka B.P.). The distribution of the Campanian Ignimbrite has been enhanced by the discovery of cryptotephra deposits (volcanic ash layers that are not visible to the naked eye) in archaeological cave sequences. They enable us to synchronize archaeological and paleoclimatic records through the period of transition from Neanderthal to the earliest anatomically modern human populations in Europe. Our results confirm that the combined effects of a major volcanic eruption and severe climatic cooling failed to have lasting impacts on Neanderthals or early modern humans in Europe. We infer that modern humans proved a greater competitive threat to indigenous populations than natural disasters.Entities:
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Year: 2012 PMID： 22826222 PMCID： PMC3427068 DOI： 10.1073/pnas.1204579109
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A ISSN： 0027-8424 Impact factor: 11.205