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Geology; September, 2007; v. 35; no. 9; p. 831-834; DOI: 10.1130/G23794A.1
© 2007 Geological Society of America
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Desert speleothems reveal climatic window for African exodus of early modern humans

Anton Vaks1, Miryam Bar-Matthews2, Avner Ayalon2, Alan Matthews3, Ludwik Halicz4 and Amos Frumkin5

1 Institute of Earth Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel, and Geological Survey of Israel, 30 Malkhei Israel St., Jerusalem 95501, Israel
2 Geological Survey of Israel, 30 Malkhei Israel St., Jerusalem 95501, Israel
3 Institute of Earth Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
4 Geological Survey of Israel, 30 Malkhei Israel St., Jerusalem 95501, Israel
5 Department of Geography, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91905, Israel

One of the first movements of early modern humans out of Africa occurred 130–100 thousand years ago (ka), when they migrated northward to the Levant region. The climatic conditions that accompanied this migration are still under debate. Using high-precision multicollector–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS) U-Th methods, we dated carbonate cave deposits (speleothems) from the central and southern Negev Desert of Israel, located at the northeastern margin of the Saharan-Arabian Desert. Speleothems grow only when rainwater enters the unsaturated zone, and this study reveals that a major cluster of wet episodes (the last recorded in the area) occurred between 140 and 110 ka. This episodic wet period coincided with increased monsoonal precipitation in the southern parts of the Saharan-Arabian Desert. The disappearance at this time of the desert barrier between central Africa and the Levant, and particularly in the Sinai-Negev land bridge between Africa and Asia, would have created a climatic "window" for early modern human dispersion to the Levant.

Key Words: Negev Desert • speleothems • U-Th dating • paleoclimate • out of Africa






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