Oxygen and carbon isotopes in Gerbillinae (gerbil) teeth provide palaeoaridity records in two Late Pleistocene Moroccan sites - Archive ouverte HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Poster De Conférence Quaternary International Année : 2015

Oxygen and carbon isotopes in Gerbillinae (gerbil) teeth provide palaeoaridity records in two Late Pleistocene Moroccan sites

Résumé

Available evidence indicates that climate in North Africa has varied strongly since the Last Interglacial between periods of humidity and aridity. Here we sought to develop an independent proxy for past humidity shifts in Mediterranean NW Africa over the last 125 ka using stable oxygen and carbon isotopes from Gerbillinae (gerbil) teeth. A modern study of gerbil teeth from mesic, semi-arid and arid bioclimate zones across NW Africa established that their d18O composition is sensitive to moisture availability and relative humidity, because of their strong reliance on plant water. Unsurprisingly the d13C composition of the teeth reflects the vegetation consumed by the animal in its highly localized microhabitat. We analysed gerbil teeth from two archaeological cave sequences, El Harhoura 2 and Taforalt, located on the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of Morocco respectively. Although the two sequences do not overlap perfectly in time, the d18O and d13C composition of gerbil teeth in both sequences indicates that both the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of NW Africa experienced humid to arid climate shifts during MIS 5 and MIS 3/2. The climate data is interpreted in relation to other environmental, and cultural, shifts in the archaeological record in the two sites.
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Dates et versions

hal-02401508 , version 1 (10-12-2019)

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Amy Jeffrey, Emmanuelle Stoetzel, Simon Parfitt, Nick Barton, Roland Nespoulet, et al.. Oxygen and carbon isotopes in Gerbillinae (gerbil) teeth provide palaeoaridity records in two Late Pleistocene Moroccan sites. The African Quaternary: environments, ecology and humans (AFQUA), Jan 2015, Cap Town, South Africa. 404, p.175, 2016, Quaternary International. ⟨10.1016/j.quaint.2015.08.098⟩. ⟨hal-02401508⟩
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