marketrent OP t1_iwa77q0 wrote on November 14, 2022 at 2:58 AM

Eduardo Mayoral, Jérémy Duveau, Ana Santos, Antonio Rodríguez Ramírez, Juan A. Morales, Ricardo Díaz-Delgado, Jorge Rivera-Silva, Asier Gómez-Olivencia & Ignacio Díaz-Martínez; 19 October 2022.

Abstract excerpt:

>In this paper, we report new Optically Stimulated Luminescence dating that places the hominin footprints surface in the range of 295.8 ± 17 ka (MIS 9-MIS 8 transition, Middle Pleistocene).

>This new age implies that the possible track-makers are individuals more likely from the Neandertal evolutionary lineage. Regardless of the taxon attributed to the Matalascañas footprints, they supplement the existing partial fossil record for the European Middle Pleistocene Hominins being notably the first palaeoanthropological evidence (hominin skeleton or footprints) from the MIS 9 and MIS 8 transition discovered in the Iberian Peninsula, a moment of climatic evolution from warm to cool.

>Thus, the Matalascañas footprints represent a crucial record for understanding human occupations in Europe in the Pleistocene.

Scientific Reports, DOI 10.1038/s41598-022-22524-2

jdpcrash t1_iwcasnz wrote on November 14, 2022 at 4:14 PM

Would that warm to cool period include north Africa? Where warm periods brought on higher rainfall, inland deltas/marshland and savanna to the Sahara while cooler periods bring the conditions we see today and forced migration?