A late Pleistocene refugium in Mediterranean North Africa? Palaeoenvironmental reconstruction from stable isotope analyses of land snail shells (Haua Fteah, Libya)

摘要

The late Pleistocene to Holocene archaeological record of North Africa is key to understanding the emergence of anatomically modern humans into West Asia and Europe, and the broadening of subsistence strategies in the shift from hunter-gatherer to pastoral-agricultural lifeways. Some contend that these developments were modulated by major shifts in climate and environment. Evaluation of this hypothesis requires the pairing of local and regional climate records with well-dated archaeological sequences. The Haua Fteah archaeological site in the Gebel Akhdar region of Libya provides a key site to test this hypothesis as the cave contains one of the longest and most complete sequences of human occupation in North Africa as well as abundant material for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. This study uses stable isotope analyses (delta O-18 and delta C-13) of the terrestrial mollusc Helix melanostoma to construct a palaeoenvironmental framework for interpreting North African human-environment interactions from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Neolithic (similar to 30,000 to 5000 years ago).