Jimbob Blinkhorn
@jblinkhorn.bsky.social
📤 1077
📥 146
📝 24
reposted by
Jimbob Blinkhorn
David Miedzianogora
16 days ago
Just published a paper on the lithics from Kabwe. We argue that they're indicative of MSA technology, although they can't be definitevely associated with the fossils. Might help better understand the origins of the MSA and its complex pattern across the continent.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
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Homo heidelbergensis and The Origins of The Middle Stone Age: The Kabwe (Broken Hill) Lithic Assemblage - African Archaeological Review
The Middle Stone Age (MSA) saw the emergence of novel behaviours in the archaeological record and is generally associated with our own species, Homo sapiens. Yet, most archaeological assemblages conta...
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10437-025-09642-8
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Great to have been part of this team in the field and see the publication out!
add a skeleton here at some point
about 1 month ago
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Dr Huw Groucutt
about 1 month ago
(1/18) New paper alert, a thread! Just published in PLoS ONE, our study: “Novel archaeological and palaeontological findings in cave and palaeoriver landscapes of inland northeast Arabia”. Link:
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
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Novel archaeological and palaeontological findings in cave and palaeoriver landscapes of inland northeast Arabia
Knowledge about environmental change and the evolutionary history of hominins in Arabia has been rapidly developing over the last two decades. Interdisciplinary research on humans and environments acr...
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0337005
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
UoL EvoAnth Seminar Series
3 months ago
There's still time to register for this week's talk, given by
@professorlacy.bsky.social
! Sign up here:
liverpool-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
We hope to see you there!
add a skeleton here at some point
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Beautiful clear day at the top of British Camp
3 months ago
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reposted by
Jimbob Blinkhorn
Lucy Timbrell
5 months ago
Join us at the MPI-GEA or online for a free symposium on Quantifying Complexity in Stone Tools on the 21st of October! 🪨 With a keynote lecture by Charles Perreault. Full speaker list will be released soon! Secure your spot here:
shh-cloud.gnz.mpg.de/index.php/ap...
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Communications Biology
6 months ago
Hindcasted species distribution modelling of baboons illuminates potential refugia across Africa and Arabia, with predicted maxima and minima of habitable ranges pulsed by orbital precession and obliquity expressed within the last precessional cycle.
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
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Identifying late Pleistocene and Holocene refugia for baboons - Communications Biology
Hindcasted species distribution modelling of baboons illuminates potential refugia across Africa and Arabia, with predicted maxima and minima of habitable ranges pulsed by orbital precession and obliq...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-025-08419-8
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Lucy Timbrell
6 months ago
This project ended up taking the best part of 3 years 😅 Thank you very much to
@margheritac17.bsky.social
,
@mikleonardi.bsky.social
,
@jblinkhorn.bsky.social
,
@elliescerri.bsky.social
, Manuel Chevalier, Matt Grove, Andrea Pozzi and Andrea Manica from
@eegcam.bsky.social
for your hard work!!
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Lucy Timbrell
6 months ago
Very pleased to see our paper published online at Climate of the Past:
cp.copernicus.org/articles/21/...
We present model-data comparisons of Late Quaternary climate across the Northern Hemisphere, showing that increasing model resolution has little net effect on coherence with pollen proxies 😊
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More is not always better: delta-downscaling climate model outputs from 30 to 5 min resolution has minimal impact on coherence with Late Quaternary proxies
Abstract. Both proxies and models provide key resources to explore how palaeoenvironmental changes may have impacted diverse biotic communities and cultural processes. While proxies are thought to pro...
https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/21/1185/2025/
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Evolutionary Ecology Group, Cambridge
6 months ago
New paper in collaboration with
@lucytimbrell96.bsky.social
and
@jblinkhorn.bsky.social
, with several of us involved (
@mikleonardi.bsky.social
@margheritac17.bsky.social
@andreavpozzi.bsky.social
) shows that downscaling palaeoclimate models doesn't necessarily improve coherence with proxy data.
add a skeleton here at some point
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Evolutionary Ecology Group, Cambridge
6 months ago
New paper out, in collaboration with
@jblinkhorn.bsky.social
@elliescerri.bsky.social
and
@lucytimbrell96.bsky.social
add a skeleton here at some point
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reposted by
Jimbob Blinkhorn
Eleanor Scerri
6 months ago
New paper alert! Led by
@jblinkhorn.bsky.social
, we look at refugia for baboons in the Pleistocene and Holocene, offering a potential analogue for early hominins where climatic tolerances are shared.
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
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Identifying late Pleistocene and Holocene refugia for baboons - Communications Biology
Hindcasted species distribution modelling of baboons illuminates potential refugia across Africa and Arabia, with predicted maxima and minima of habitable ranges pulsed by orbital precession and obliq...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-025-08419-8
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reposted by
Jimbob Blinkhorn
Dr Rachel Pope
6 months ago
Here it is, our case study on how to combine a century of deep (and building) archaeological knowledge around prehistoric social traditions with the new and exciting aDNA data, to help avoid interpretive pitfalls. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed the process of writing it 🎁
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
MU-Peter Shimon 🀄
6 months ago
Malaria shaped human spatial organisation for the last 74 thousand years🏺🧪 Margherita Colucci,
@ceciliapad.bsky.social
,
@elliescerri.bsky.social
et al
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Humans avoided or unsuccessful in malaria hotspots. Effects of these choices shaped human demography for last 74 kya
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Dr Huw Groucutt
7 months ago
Nice coverage of some our ongoing work at Latnija and our Island Legacies conference last week
timesofmalta.com/article/latn...
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Latnija cave discovery hailed as ‘world class’ by leading archaeologist
The discovery showed that Malta’s human history is at least 1,000 years older than previously thought
https://timesofmalta.com/article/latnija-discovery-hailed-world-class-leading-archaeologist.1111113?fbclid=IwY2xjawK2iu9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETF2QWNTSjUwTnl2a3d5NmxJAR6OZvTJOf2VR4_Ckb6ifcOvhDZzGjtymShoGCYPBnrpoAtNAfw7zWkVTNsGqg_aem_qPSnOJN4xdC2C6xfqo1NXQ
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Margherita Colucci
7 months ago
🚨 NEW preprint🚨 Our latest study @HPS MPI-GEA
@elliescerri.bsky.social
&
@eegcam.bsky.social
models
#malaria
risk over the past 74,000 years revealing its powerful role in shaping human habitat choice and dispersal since the late Pleistocene in sub-Saharan Africa 🦟🌍
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Malaria shaped human spatial organisation for the last 74 thousand years
The mechanisms driving the spatial organisation of early human societies in Africa are typically addressed through climate variables [1][1]-[3][2]. However, genetic and archaeological studies have als...
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.04.657870v1
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Tori Herridge
7 months ago
Palaeo folks, I was speaking with the production team recently and they said they are keen to feature more palaeontology stories. So if you are excavating/surveying this summer and think you might turn up something, drop them a line
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias
7 months ago
🚨NEW PAPER from the
@eegcam.bsky.social
!🚨I have never been as proud of something as of the work that finally we can share today:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- we show how a climatically driven Pan African meta population model explains our species genetic and morphological diversity 🧬💀
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Pan-African metapopulation model explains Homo sapiens genetic and morphological evolution
Emerging evidence has challenged the traditional view of a single-region origin for Homo sapiens, suggesting instead that our species arose and diversified across multiple geographically distinct popu...
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.22.655514v1
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Dr Huw Groucutt
8 months ago
First publication for my recently started TerraForm project is out. A short overview and introduction published in The European Archaeologist (
www.researchgate.net/publication/...
).
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(PDF) Project Announcement. Introducing the TerraForm Project: The Rise and Fall of Maltese Terraced Landscapes
PDF | On May 15, 2025, Huw S. Groucutt published Project Announcement. Introducing the TerraForm Project: The Rise and Fall of Maltese Terraced Landscapes | Find, read and cite all the research you ne...
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/391766731_Project_Announcement_Introducing_the_TerraForm_Project_The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Maltese_Terraced_Landscapes
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Dr Laura T. Buck
8 months ago
Our next MENDLS lecture is coming up next week and it's sure to be a great one. If you're in the Northwest, come and hear Prof Manica talking about the role of climate in human evolution.
add a skeleton here at some point
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Phoebe Baker
8 months ago
Really looking forward to this next Wednesday (14th May 2025)! Anyone is welcome to join - registration is free and available here:
forms.gle/9kdzpTbfMuDZ...
add a skeleton here at some point
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reposted by
Jimbob Blinkhorn
Rachel Rudd
8 months ago
@deepakjha.bsky.social
presenting CSIA of modern plants and sediments along an aridiy gradient in the Thar Desert at
#EGU25
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Lucy Timbrell
8 months ago
Looking forward to our next MENDLS talk on Wednesday 14th of May with Prof Andrea Manica of the University of Cambridge
@eegcam.bsky.social
Join us in Liverpool! Sign up via the QR code below
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Flint Dibble
8 months ago
Livestream tomorrow at 5pm UK/noon EDT with Drs Eleanor Scerri (
@elliescerri.bsky.social
) and Huw Groucutt (
@huwgroucutt.bsky.social
) to chat about their recent paper that's been all over the news about Hunter gatherer occupation on Malta
www.youtube.com/live/ZGRjN20...
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New Discovery: Stone Age Seafaring to Malta with Dr Eleanor Scerri and Huw Groucutt
YouTube video by Archaeology with Flint Dibble
https://www.youtube.com/live/ZGRjN20U0LM?si=FF9gGv--0P02O_vk
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias
8 months ago
🚨New preprint!🚨"Sexual division of labour shapes hunter-gatherer spatial ranges". Following on the sexual division of labour theme, finally out our analyses on the lifetime spatial ranges of over 700 Mbendjele BaYaka 🤩
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Sexual division of labour shapes hunter-gatherer spatial ranges
Mobility lies at the adaptive core of the hunter-gatherer foraging niche, and has shaped the cultural and genetic evolution of our species. Yet, the specific drivers and consequences of mobility are s...
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.15.649057v1
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Stewie Stewart
9 months ago
It’s been great to see all the excitement in Malta about our recent findings at Latnija. Looking forward to the future at this incredible archaeological site!
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Dr Huw Groucutt
9 months ago
timesofmalta.com/article/malt...
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Malta archaeological find hits the world’s headlines
Ground-breaking discovery proving first humans settled on island more than 1,000 years than previously thought was revealed last week
https://timesofmalta.com/article/malta-archaeological-find-hits-world-headlines.1108308
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias
9 months ago
Finally out 🥳: I've written and recorded a podcast episode with the amazing Karen Kramer for Sapiens Magazine on the origins and evolution of division of labour in hunter-gatherer societies, and its implications for undestanding (or misunderstanding) gender roles:
open.spotify.com/episode/2ZGA...
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Hunting, Gathering, and the Fluidity of Gender Roles
SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human · Episode
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2ZGADyVN2iK0HlsuXJoEHT?si=9c65f11cc5b34e08
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reposted by
Jimbob Blinkhorn
Stewie Stewart
9 months ago
Our new paper just out in
@nature.com
By analyzing speleothems we were able to reconstruct the palaeoclimate of northern Arabia over the past 8-million-years! Work led by Monika Markowska (University of Northumbria)
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Recurrent humid phases in Arabia over the past 8 million years - Nature
A climatic record from desert speleothems shows that the central Arabian interior experienced recurrent humid intervals over the past 8 million years, which likely facilitated mammalian dispersals bet...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08859-6
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reposted by
Jimbob Blinkhorn
Stewie Stewart
9 months ago
National Geographic piece on our latest research our in
@nature.com
where we document recurrent humid periods in Arabia over the past 8-million-years
www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/...
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Saudi Arabia's vast desert was once a lush, green paradise
A new study reconstructing the Arabian Peninsula’s ancient past adds clues to how early humans left the African continent.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/green-arabia-desert-lush-ancient-landscape
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Feeling lucky to have played a part in two great teams both of which have papers out in Nature this afternoon - and where better to celebrate some fantastic work than by getting back out to the field for more
9 months ago
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Dr Huw Groucutt
9 months ago
(1/17) We are thrilled to see our new paper ‘Hunter-gatherer sea voyages extended to remotest Mediterranean islands’ published in Nature.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08780-y
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Michael Petraglia
9 months ago
Paper alert,
@nature.com
. Our study reveals 8 million years of
#GreenArabia
. We document environmental variability - ranging over the entire course of human evolution. Arabia is a key bridge at the cross-roads of continents.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Eleanor Scerri
9 months ago
In
@nature.com
we report the presence of the Mesolithic on Malta - upending everything we knew about the seafaring capabilities of late European hunter-gatherers and pushing back Maltese prehistory by 1000 years. Watch the clip, link to open access paper is below. 1/5
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Dr Huw Groucutt
9 months ago
(1/13) A thread on our new paper just published in Nature, ‘Recurrent humid phases in Arabia over the past 8 million years’.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Recurrent humid phases in Arabia over the past 8 million years - Nature
A climatic record from desert speleothems shows that the central Arabian interior experienced recurrent humid intervals over the past 8 million years, which likely facilitated mammalian dispersals bet...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08859-6
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reposted by
Jimbob Blinkhorn
Eleanor Scerri
9 months ago
Thanks to my incredible co-authors, not all of whom are on this platform - especially
@huwgroucutt.bsky.social
,
@jblinkhorn.bsky.social
,
@stewiestewart.bsky.social
, and Nicholas Vella with whom all this started!
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
University of Liverpool News
9 months ago
NEW | Research co-authored by
@jblinkhorn.bsky.social
from
@livancworlds.bsky.social
shows that hunter-gatherers crossed at least 100km of open water to reach Malta 8,500 years ago, 1,000 years earlier than previously thought. More 👉
news.liverpool.ac.uk/2025/04/09/h...
@livunihss.bsky.social
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
James Clark
9 months ago
Still hugely honoured to have been able to work on this paper, led by the excellent
@lucytimbrell96.bsky.social
! Check it out below 👇
add a skeleton here at some point
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reposted by
Jimbob Blinkhorn
Eleanor Scerri
9 months ago
My amazing zooarch postdoc Mario Mata-González has published a new paper based on his PhD work - check it otu!
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
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Prey choice and changes in site occupation intensity during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic at Ghar-e Boof (southern Zagros Mountains, Iran) - Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences
Ghar-e Boof represents an exceptional Paleolithic site in the southern Zagros Mountains. Due to its long Late Pleistocene sequence that spans from ca. 81 ka until the Epipaleolithic, the site offers a...
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-025-02191-w?utm_source=rct_congratemailt&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=oa_20250403&utm_content=10.1007%2Fs12520-025-02191-w
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reposted by
Jimbob Blinkhorn
Eleanor Scerri
9 months ago
Our new paper is out in Scientific Reports, led by our own
@lucytimbrell96.bsky.social
exploring factors behind early technological diversification! Congratulations Lucy!
add a skeleton here at some point
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Lucy Timbrell
9 months ago
Our paper “Climate seasonality and predictability during the middle stone age and implications for technological diversification in early Homo sapiens” has been published in Scientific Reports 🥳
rdcu.be/egqwZ
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Climate seasonality and predictability during the middle stone age and implications for technological diversification in early Homo sapiens
Scientific Reports - Climate seasonality and predictability during the middle stone age and implications for technological diversification in early Homo sapiens
https://rdcu.be/egqwZ
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Back in India for the first time since 2019! And spent the afternoon looking at lithics from the Thar Desert
10 months ago
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reposted by
Jimbob Blinkhorn
Dr Huw Groucutt
10 months ago
This time six years ago,
@jblinkhorn.bsky.social
and I were surveying along the Gambia River in Senegal for archaeological sites.
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reposted by
Jimbob Blinkhorn
Eleanor Scerri
10 months ago
And now for the 'story behind the paper'!
communities.springernature.com/posts/unlock...
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Unlocking Our Ecological History
New discoveries from Côte D'Ivoire place ecosystem diversity at the roots of our species.
https://communities.springernature.com/posts/unlocking-our-ecological-history
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Carl Zimmer
10 months ago
Meanwhile, 150,000 years ago: hunter-gatherers thrived in rain forests, once considered too harsh for early Homo sapiens to survive. Here's my story [Gift link]
nyti.ms/3EThoDL
🧪
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Early Humans Thrived in Rainforests (Gift Article)
The discovery clashes with the traditional image of humans evolving on the savannas of East Africa.
https://nyti.ms/3EThoDL
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Eleanor Scerri
10 months ago
Special thanks to Prof. Guédé & Dr N’Zi, the field team led by
@jblinkhorn.bsky.social
,
@eslembenarous.bsky.social
who led the geochronology, Sarah Elliott on phytoliths, Chris Kiahtipes on pollen,
@robertpatalano.bsky.social
& Patrick Roberts on leaf waxes, Khady Niang & Alex Blackwood on lithics.
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Eleanor Scerri
10 months ago
This work was made possible thanks to the joint Ivorian-Soviet team who first excavated the site in the 1980s-90s, led by the late Prof. Liubin, and our co-author Prof. Guédé. Despite the challenges of the Covid pandemic, we were able to return to the site for key samples.
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Eleanor Scerri
10 months ago
Our work validates models indicating this region of Côte d’Ivoire was a rainforest refuge, and demonstrates the importance of West Africa in the story of human evolution. Through this work, we can now ask new questions, e.g. does rainforest habitation goes back even further in time?
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Eleanor Scerri
10 months ago
The stone tools at Bété contain typical Middle Stone Age (MSA) elements combined with heavy duty tools that are unique for this location and timeframe. These heavy duty tools may have been used to fell trees and/or dig up tubers, or may have been used for a variety of tasks.
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Jimbob Blinkhorn
Eleanor Scerri
10 months ago
Leaf wax isotopes, phytoliths and pollen all pointed to wet tropical forest, with keystone trees like Hunteria and Oil Palms. The presence of anthers proved the local signal, while an absence of grasses points to a deep, dense jungle, rather than a strip of gallery forest next to a grassland.
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