Data

This data corresponds to the article and shall be quoted as such using the provided DOI: Hensel, E. A., Bödeker, O., Bubenzer, O., and Vogelsang, R.: Combining geomorphological–hydrological analyses and the location of settlement and raw material sites – a case study on un-derstanding prehistoric human settlement activity in the southwestern Ethiopian Highlands, E&GQuaternary Sci. J., 68, 201–213, https://doi.org/10.5194/egqsj-68-201-2019, 2019.

Presentation at SAfA 2018 Conference in Toronto: The Dendi Lake Rock Shelter is situated circa 80 km west of Addis Abeba on the West Central Ethiopian Plateau in the Ginchi woreda of the Oromiya regional state of Ethiopia. In October 2012 a team from the University of Cologne, CRC 806 directed by R. Vogelsang excavated a test-trench that revealed four archaeological horizons that could clearly be distinguished in typological manners as well as by radiocarbon dates. The talk will focus on the lithics,...

The growing number of paleoenvironmental data, GIS-based analyses and modelling allows us to produce PaleoMaps for a given area. However, the „translation“ of paleoenvironmental information in maps is even more complex, than producing maps as an illustration of the present. The CRC 806 “Our Way to Europe” provides the background to study the culture-environment interaction and human mobility in the Late Quaternary. Northeastern Africa during the Last Interglacial is thereby an important region and timespan....

In prehistoric times the rock shelter Mochena Borago served as a retreat for anatomically modern humans in the southwestern Ethiopian Highlands. During the last decade archaeo-logical analyses helped to gain insight into the history of settlement of the rock shelter in the last 50 ka. Element and micromorphological analyses as well as computer-supported large scale investigations for sediment sources and transport into the rock shelter itself were carried out to understand the depositional history of...

Scale, spatial and temporal, is one of the most important issues to deal with, when reconstructing former environments and landscapes in context of geoarchaeology. We present remote sensing investigations of different scales in order to answer crucial questions about late Pleistocene terrain environment as one important aspect for the migration of anatomically modern humans in Northeast Africa.

Thanks to new satellite data, it is possible to examine deserts area-wide for linear structures. Additionally, digital elevation models can be use to evaluate the geomorphological situation. In conjunction with historical sources and ground-truth data, these data allow us, for the first time, to reconstruct the position of the caravan routes with reasonable accuracy, here exemplified for the extremely arid Western Desert of Egypt. On the central Egyyptian Limestone Plateau where stony ground (hamada, serir)...

Perched groundwater resources on the northwestern coast of Egypt have thus far been little studied. However, if replenished by rainwater, they can provide a considerable amount of renewable water, i.e., for sustainable irrigation. These resources are limited, show different salinity contents and are endangered by overuse, pollution and by the sea level rising in the context of global warming. This paper presents new climatic data, geomorphologic, geologic, geochemical and hydrological researches in...

In vielen Trockengebieten der Erde haben der Klimawandel, ein überdurchschnittlich hoher Bevölkerungsdruck und eine zunehmende Ressourcen-, Nahrungsmittel- und Energienachfrage zu Landnutzungsänderungen, Migration, Ausweitung von Bewässerungsflächen oder zunehmender Verstädterung und damit einhergehenden Prozessen der Bodendegradation oder gar Desertifikation sowie zu physischem oder ökonomischem Wassermangel geführt. Während in prähistorischer Zeit das menschliche Handeln von den naturräumlichen...

The expansion of modern human populations in Africa 80,000 to 60,000 years ago and their initial exodus out of Africa have been tentatively linked to two phases of technological and behavioral innovation within the Middle Stone Age of southern Africa—the Still Bay and Howieson’s Poort industries—that are associated with early evidence for symbols and personal ornaments. Establishing the correct sequence of events, however, has been hampered by inadequate chronologies. We report ages for nine sites from...

This chapter is situated in the field among archaeology, geomorphology, and ecology. Two case studies from different east-Saharan landscape units classify and analyse archaeological, geoscientific, and remote-sensing data of Early and Mid-Holocene archaeological sites. The section combines the approaches of landscape ecology and landscape archaeology. The aim is a parameterisation of the research areas with respect to structural and ecological features. The data were used within a Geographical...

Between 70 and 50 ka BP, anatomically modern humans dispersed across and out of Africa to eventually populate all inhabitable continents. Knowledge of paleoenvironments and human behavioral patterns in Africa prior to and during these dispersals is crucial for understanding how and why hunter-gatherers were able to adapt rapidly to the new environments they encountered. However, few well-dated sites from this time period are known from the Horn of Africa, one of the purported staging areas for population...

This Bachelor of Science thesis will show the changes of the coastal area of the Red Sea at the time of the Upper Pleistocene and their effects on the dispersal of anatomically modern humans (AMH). Thus insights about possible routes of migration of AMH out of Africa shall be gained. For this research the palaeoclimate, the sea level changes and the tectonic processes will be decribed. By reconstruction of coastal areas it will be shown that a trespassing of the Bab al-Mandab strait at the mouth of the Red...