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Since 1995 archaeological research has been undertaken in the Eastern Rif (Morocco) by a Moroccan-German research team with participation of the “Institut National des Sciences de l’Archéologie et du Patrimoine du Maroc” (INSAP), the “Kommission für die Archäologie Außereuropäischer Kulturen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts” (KAAK), and the Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology of the University of Cologne. In the course of these studies, several hundred sites have been discovered and a number of...

The Neolithisation of the southern Iberian Peninsula and the Mediterranean Maghreb, here termed “Alboran territory”, must be considered as the same integrative process. By the mid-8th millennium calBP, both sides of the Western Mediterranean were inhabited by hunter-gatherer groups which probably maintained intercontinental contacts. However, from around 7.6 ka calBP, Neolithic groups from the Eastern Mediterranean arrived in the region along the littoral of what is today Andalusia. Neolithic innovations...

It is still an ongoing debate whether the transition of the last ‘green Sahara’ period to today’s large desert during the Holocene, the African Humid Period (AHP), was a progressive or an abrupt change in hydrological conditions. Several climate records mainly from East Africa suggest a rapid decline of moisture availability at the end of the AHP including new data from a marine sequence off the Horn of Africa (Tierney & deMenocal, 2013). Other archives including sedimentological,...

Der Vierte Nil-Katarakt im Nord-Sudan ist im Jahr 2008 im Hamdab-Stausee untergegangen. Geowissenschaftlich und archäologisch bislang kaum erforscht, stellte er eine einzigartige landschaftliche Versuchsanordnung dar. Am Beispiel der Insel Boni, die für die vorliegende Studie vor der Flutung im Rahmen des Sonderforschungsbereichs 389 untersucht wurde, wird gezeigt, dass die tektonisch angelegte Kleinkammerung des Reliefs und die nachfolgende, periodisch und saisonal stark wechselnde fluviale und äolische...

The sedimentological and geochemical properties of a 7.47 m long laminated sequence from hypersaline Lake Yoa in northern Chad have been investigated, representing a unique, continuous 6100 year long continental record of climate and environmental change in the eastern Central Sahara. These data were used to reconstruct the Mid to Late Holocene history of this currently hyper-arid region, in order to address the question of whether the Mid Holocene environmental transition from a humid to a dry Sahara was...

The fresh and saline lakes of Ounianga Kebir and Serir in northeastern Chad are among the very few permanent aquatic ecosystems currently existing in the hyper-arid core of the Sahara desert. The confirmed modern fauna of aquatic molluscs at Ounianga comprises three widespread species (Melanoides tuberculata, Biomphalaria pfeifferi and Lymnaea natalensis), of which only the first appears to maintain a thriving population. We recovered seven more species of gastropods, among which one is new to science...

Desiccation of the Sahara since the middle Holocene has eradicated all but a few natural archives recording its transition from a “green Sahara” to the present hyperarid desert. Our continuous 6000-year paleoenvironmental reconstruction from northern Chad shows progressive drying of the regional terrestrial ecosystem in response to weakening insolation forcing of the African monsoon and abrupt hydrological change in the local aquatic ecosystem controlled by site-specific thresholds. Strong reductions...

The Neolithic transition, since decades in a particular focus of the Western Mediterranean archaeological research, recently receives new input concerning the chronological frame (Carvalho 2010), the development of regional groups (Manen et al. 2010) or raw material supply (Binder et al. 2010). One of the most interesting topics about this is the variability of the archaeological record in the Southern Iberian Peninsula. This seems to be closely linked to the complexity of the environment and the...

In contrast to the widely acknowledged anthropological finds in Oase Cave and to the key geographical position of Romanian territory for the assumed dispersion of Anatomically Modern Humans in Europe, the archaeological information regarding the emergence of the Upper Paleolithic in Romania remains poorly known to a broader scientific community. The prolonged theoretical and methodological isolation of the Romanian Paleolithic research has particularly contributed to keeping the regional archaeology out...

East African paleoenvironments are highly variable, marked by extreme fluctuations in moisture availability, which has far-reaching implications for the origin, evolution and dispersal of Homo sapiens in and beyond the region. This paper presents results from a pilot core from the Chew Bahir basin in southern Ethiopia that records the climatic history of the past 45 ka, with emphasis on the African Humid Period (AHP, w15e5 ka calBP). Geochemical, physical and biological indicators show that Chew Bahir...

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...