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Here, we present new sedimentary data of the amber bearing layer from the Holocene coastal plain on the SW Saaremaa Island where amber is not known in sedimentary successions but is common in Stone Age and Bronze Age archaeological sites. A layer of buried organic matter (BOM), sandwiched between sandy coastal deposits and containing pieces of natural amber, was discovered during fieldwork and analysed...
The influence of the Coriolis force on the Hornsund fjord environment (southern Spitsbergen) was investigated in the marine sedimentary record from the last century. Due to the influence of the rotational effects, Atlantic and Arctic Water enter the fjord along the southern shore and exit along the northern shore. Thus, the sedimentary record from the southern part reflects the large‐scale hydrological...
The most recent excavations carried out at the Thiongo Korongo (TK) site, in the upper part of Olduvai Bed II and dating from about 1.353±0.035 Ma, have made it possible to identify a hitherto unknown Acheulean floor. Between 2010 and 2015, we excavated nearly 175 m2 in several areas immediately adjacent to M. Leakey's trenches. Our findings led us to reinterpret TK's general stratigraphy and to identify...
This paper presents a detailed taphonomic study of the faunal assemblage from FLK West (Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania), a site with an Acheulean component that dates to 1.7 Ma. The faunal sample analysed here is distributed in different archaeological levels and is associated with a significant lithic accumulation including several large format tools and handaxes. The fauna indicates the proliferation of...
It is uncommon in the North Sea basin and northwestern Europe for the ice‐marginal glacial successions of the Middle Pleistocene, Anglian (Elsterian) age to be well preserved and not overridden by subsequent glaciations. The existence of extensive and thick (˜20 m) Middle Pleistocene sand and gravel successions in East Anglia, England, provide a unique opportunity to reconstruct and understand the...
Analysis of Olex bathymetry, multibeam sonar and seismic survey data, shows that, perhaps during the mid Pleistocene, grounded ice crossing the Northeast Newfoundland Shelf was topographically steered in Hawke Saddle, occupied a broad trough underlying much of Belle Isle Bank and present‐day Notre Dame Trough, and deposited ~100 m of stacked glacigenic sediment; grounded ice crossed southern Funk...
No agreement on what constitutes a safe and reproducible anticontamination protocol exists for ancient starch research. Protocols applied to laboratory work may represent ‘symptomatic treatment’ only, as contamination of archaeological materials in the field may be more extensive than realized. This paper is the first systematic study on the impact that modern starches from surface and buried soils,...
Much of Greenland experienced summers warmer than present in parts of the early to middle Holocene, during a precession‐driven positive anomaly in summer insolation. However, the magnitude of that warmth remains poorly known, and its timing and spatial pattern are uncertain. Here we describe the first quantitative Holocene palaeotemperature reconstruction from central East Greenland based upon insect...
The Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) is a key element of the global climate system and thus knowledge about its melting in the past is desirable. However, GrIS‐melt records only date back until 1979 and climate data based reconstructions covering the 20th century differ with respect to absolute values. To extend our knowledge about the Greenland Ice Sheet we examined the potential of shrub ring‐widths and...
New cosmogenic 10Be exposure ages constrain Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) deglaciation and the culmination of a local glacier advance on the southern shore of Nuussuaq (peninsula) in central West Greenland. Mean ages of GrIS deglaciation and local glacier moraine deposition are 10.5±0.1 ka (n = 2) and 10.4±0.2 ka (n = 5), respectively. The similar ages suggest an advance/stillstand of local glaciers...
The introduction of invasive Spartina grasses (C4 plant) into previously C3‐dominated saltmarshes of western Europe complicates the reconstruction of past relative sea‐level (RSL) using sediment geochemistry‐based approaches. We apply a Bayesian mixing model (SIAR – Stable Isotope Analysis in R) to identify organic carbon (Corg) source contributions to saltmarsh sediment and correct δ13C values for...
Drought is a common natural disaster in arid Central Asia, and the severity and frequency of drought and other hydroclimatic events are critical to the region's ecology and its residents’ livelihoods. In particular, water resource management requires reliable knowledge of climatic variability and annual and centennial drought patterns. In this paper, we establish a 587‐year tree ring chronology using...
In this paper, we present the results of new archaeological and geological research carried out in SHK Extension, a new site excavated within the SHK fluvial complex (Bed II, Olduvai Gorge). The paper describes the stratigraphy of the site and its correlation with our excavation in SHK Main Site, showing that overbank archaeological accumulations in both areas are synchronous and form part of the...
The St Kilda archipelago lies ~65 km west of the Outer Hebrides and ~60 km east of the Atlantic shelf break, and represents a key site for testing the assertion that during the Last Local Glacial Maximum (LLGM; c. 27 ka) the British–Irish Ice Sheet (BIIS) extended to near the shelf edge in all sectors. Two consistent cosmogenic 36Cl exposure ages averaging (≥) 81.6±7.8 ka for perched boulders at 290 m...
The use of innovative techniques such as micro‐photogrammetry and geometric morphometrics may have a major impact on the differentiation of cut marks made with different raw materials and, thus, link butchering processes with stone tool reduction sequences. This work focuses on a sample of cut‐marked bones from the Bell's Korongo (BK) site (Upper Bed II, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania), which is an emblematic...
Core preparation has been documented in Developed Oldowan assemblages dated between 1.5–1.3 Ma. However, its correct identification and significance is a matter of debate. In order to shed light on this issue, this paper attempts to reconstruct the flake production processes of the lithic assemblages currently recovered in SHK and BK at Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania). The methodological approach applied...
Understanding megafaunal population dynamics is critical to testing and refining scenarios of how extinctions occurred during the terminal Pleistocene. Large‐scale, collections‐based, chronological and taphonomic analyses of midwestern Proboscidea suggest divergent population histories in mammoths and mastodons after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Although extinction of both taxa occurred in the...
New information is presented on the configuration of the northern Barents Sea Ice Sheet (BSIS) during the last glacial and deglaciation (21–11.5 ka). The glacial dynamics of the BSIS that we discuss are based on clay‐mineral compositions of subglacial tills and a distinct kaolinite source in the central Barents Sea where previous workers have placed a large, single ice dome for the last glacial BSIS...
Spatial statistical models are powerful tools for creating simulation and prediction models. Here, we apply such models to the newly discovered 1.84 Ma site of DS (Bed I, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania). Ongoing excavation has already exposed 370 m2 of the same discrete archaeological level. This is the biggest window into an Early Pleistocene anthropogenic site. With such a large area opened, modelling...
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