Intensifying Weathering and Land Use in Iron Age Central Africa

About 3000 years ago, a major vegetation change occurred in Central Africa, when rainforest trees were abruptly replaced by savannas. Up to this point, the consensus of the scientific community has been that the forest disturbance was caused by climate change. We show here. that chemical weathering...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2012-03, Vol.335 (6073), p.1219-1222
Main Authors: Bayon, Germain, Dennielou, Bernard, Etoubleau, Joël, Ponzevera, Emmanuel, Toucanne, Samuel, Bermell, Sylvain
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Africa
Africa, Central
Agriculture - history
Aluminum - analysis
Amplification
Ancient civilizations
Central Africa
Central and West Africa
Chemical weathering
Climate
Climate Change
Climate models
Conservation of Natural Resources
Deforestation
Emigration and Immigration - history
Environmental studies
Geochemistry
Geologic Sediments - chemistry
Geological Phenomena
Hafnium - analysis
History, Ancient
Human Activities
Humans
Iron and steel industry
Land use
Metal Ages
Methodology and general studies
Neodymium - analysis
Poaceae
Potassium - analysis
Precipitation
Prehistory and protohistory
Rain forests
Rainforests
Savannas
Sciences of the Universe
Sediments
Trees
Tropical rain forests
Vegetation
Weathering
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Summary:About 3000 years ago, a major vegetation change occurred in Central Africa, when rainforest trees were abruptly replaced by savannas. Up to this point, the consensus of the scientific community has been that the forest disturbance was caused by climate change. We show here. that chemical weathering in Central Africa, reconstructed from geochemical analyses of a marine sediment core, intensified abruptly at the same period, departing substantially from the long-term weathering fluctuations related to the Late Quaternary climate. Evidence that this weathering event was also contemporaneous with the migration of Bantu-speaking farmers across Central Africa suggests that human land-use intensification at that time had already made a major impact on the rainforest.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.1215400