About
453
Publications
147,684
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
13,810
Citations
Introduction
Publications
Publications (453)
This work describes and interprets fossil lagomorphs from seven sites in the Maghreb the ages of which range from the Miocene/Pliocene boundary to the Upper Pleistocene. Some of these sites, such as the Thomas Quarries in Morocco and Tighennif (=Ternifine) in Algeria, are well known for the discovery of fossil humans and their artefacts. The lagomo...
Pleistocene environments are among the most studied issues in paleoecology and human evolution research in eastern Africa. Many data have been recorded from archaeological sites located at low and medium elevations (≤ 1500 m), whereas few contexts are known at 2000 m and above. Here,
we present a substantial isotopic study from Melka Kunture, a com...
One of iconic Africa's Big Five, the African buffalo is the largest African bovine or antelope that occurs throughout most of sub-Sahara and in a wide range of ecosystems from savanna to rainforest. The African buffalo is also one of the most successful large African mammals in terms of abundance and biomass. This species thus represents a powerful...
In this paper, we present stable carbon and oxygen isotope analyses of fauna tooth enamel from Garba IVD (1.95 Ma) and Gombore IB (1.66 Ma), two Early Acheulean sites of Melka Kunture (Upper Awash, Ethiopia), and discuss faunal taxonomy and fossil pollen. Our aim is to infer the diet and habitat of the fossil fauna, as well as the environment of bo...
In this article, we use a multiproxy approach based on stable isotope analyses (δ18O and δ13C), mesowear, and microwear dental analysis to reconstruct the climate, diet, and habitat of Plio-Pleistocene herbivores at the site of Ahl al Oughlam in western Morocco. This study has been conducted on teeth from several taxa (Sivatherium maurusium, Hippar...
In Africa, the scarcity of hominin remains found in direct association with stone tools has hindered attempts to link Homo habilis and Homo erectus with particular lithic industries. The infant mandible discovered in level E at Garba IV (Melka Kunture) on the highlands of Ethiopia is critical to this issue due to its direct association with an Oldo...
Poster presentation Number 45, Session 2,Friday 11:40-13:00
To appear in: Handbook of Pleistocene Archaeology of Africa, Volume 1, chapter 49.
Editors: Amanuel Beyin, David K. Wright, Jayne Wilkins, and Deborah I. Olszewski. Publisher: Springer Nature, Cham, Switzerland. ISBN-13: 978-3031202896
To appear in: Handbook of Pleistocene Archaeology of Africa, Volume 1, chapter 53.
Editors: Amanuel Beyin, David K. Wright, Jayne Wilkins, and Deborah I. Olszewski. Publisher: Springer Nature, Cham, Switzerland. ISBN-13: 978-3031202896
To appear in Handbook of Pleistocene Archaeology of Africa, Volume 1, chapter 54. Editors: Amanuel Beyin, David K. Wright, Jayne Wilkins, and Deborah I. Olszewski Publisher: Springer Nature, Cham, Switzerland. ISBN-13: 978-3031202896
The archaeological sites of Sidi Abderrahmane (SAR) Quarries are located on the western outskirts of Casablanca (Morocco’s economic capital), at c. 1 km from the Atlantic Ocean coast. The reference coordinates for the study area are 33.574° N, 7.695° W. The entire quarry area is named after a holy Moslem man, Sidi Abderrahman Ibn Jilali, originally...
The Sahara Desert was not always a natural barrier in the past and it experienced multiple green and humid phases, allowing dispersal episodes of fauna from Sub-Saharian locations to the North of Africa. High-resolution palaeoecological studies are underrepresented for the Plio-Pleistocene in Northern Africa. The aim of this work is to fill this ga...
While the emergence of the Acheulean is well documented in East Africa at ~1.7 Ma, subsequent developments are less well understood and to some extent controversial. Here, we provide robust evidence regarding the time period between 1.6 Ma and 1.2 Ma, based on an interdisciplinary approach to the stratigraphic sequences exposed in the Gombore gully...
Oral presentation of the early prehistory of Morocco at Casablanca
We describe here the Bovidae from the early Middle Miocene site of Maboko, Kenya, known for its rich and highly diverse assemblage of Primates. They are attributed to two taxa of slightly different sizes, Turcocerus africanus n.sp. and Kubanotragus pickfordi. In addition to Kenya, Turcocerus ranges through the Middle Miocene from Turkey to China; i...
Pleistocene archaeology records the changing behaviour and capacities of early hominins. These behavioural changes, for example, to stone tools, are commonly linked to environmental constraints. It has been argued that, in earlier times, multiple activities of everyday life were all uniformly conducted at the same spot. The separation of focused ac...
L'unité L de la Carrière Thomas I (ThI-L) à Casablanca documente la plus ancienne présence de l'Acheuléen en contexte stratigraphique irréprochable au nord de l’Afrique,. Ces assemblages documentent la forte diversification des processus techniques témoignant de la complexité des schémas mentaux impliqués alors dans la taille de la pierre ainsi que...
In this paper, we present carbon and oxygen stable isotope analysis of fauna tooth enamel from Garba IVD (~1.95 Ma) and Gombore IB (~1.66 Ma), two Early Acheulean sites of Melka Kunture (Upper Awash, Ethiopia) and discuss faunal taxonomy and fossil pollen. Our aim is to infer the diet, habitat, and environment at both sites and provide a broader pa...
The MS is a 5m high and 15m long cliff with a sequence of Acheulean levels exposed in full view, the last remnants of what was once much more extensive Lower Pleistocene deposits. The environment was of alluvial plain facies, with interbedded volcanic deposits. Then a major tectonic event, the Kella Formation or Kella Event, dated ~1.2 Ma years [1]...
The MS is a 5m high and 15m long cliff with a sequence of Acheulean levels exposed in full view, the last remnants of what was once much more extensive Lower Pleistocene deposits.
Humans evolved in the dynamic landscapes of Africa under conditions of pronounced climatic, geological and environmental change during the past 7 million years. This book brings together detailed records of the paleontological and archaeological sites in Africa that provide the basic evidence for understanding the environments in which we evolved....
Humans evolved in the dynamic landscapes of Africa under conditions of pronounced climatic, geological and environmental change during the past 7 million years. This book brings together detailed records of the paleontological and archaeological sites in Africa that provide the basic evidence for understanding the environments in which we evolved....
Despite its fragmentary nature, which often precludes precise identification, the fauna from Melka Kunture is quite interesting because many mammals are distinct at specific or subspecific levels from contemporaneous forms in the Turkana Basin or at Olduvai. This is true for the alcelaphins, the large hippo, and probably for most of the equids. Bec...
Humans evolved in the dynamic landscapes of Africa under conditions of pronounced climatic, geological and environmental change during the past 7 million years. This book brings together detailed records of the paleontological and archaeological sites in Africa that provide the basic evidence for understanding the environments in which we evolved....
The Th-OH Quarries site fauna differs from other sites, both regionally and across Africa. A remarkable feature of the mammalian fauna as a whole, as at Ahl al Oughlam, is its low diversity relative to that of Eastern Africa sites. It may be that, in contrast to this earlier site, which is richer and lacks hominins, the samples from the Th-OH quarr...
The faunal collection consists of more than 4000 identified remains of large mammals, plus thousands of rodents, insectivores, and bats, to which should be added a remarkable collection of birds, plus reptiles, amphibians, and fishes. The faunal list includes more than 100 species of vertebrates of which 56 are mammals. On the whole, the vertebrate...
Humans evolved in the dynamic landscapes of Africa under conditions of pronounced climatic, geological and environmental change during the past 7 million years. This book brings together detailed records of the paleontological and archaeological sites in Africa that provide the basic evidence for understanding the environments in which we evolved....
Humans evolved in the dynamic landscapes of Africa under conditions of pronounced climatic, geological and environmental change during the past 7 million years. This book brings together detailed records of the paleontological and archaeological sites in Africa that provide the basic evidence for understanding the environments in which we evolved....
The paper provides new data on the age and formation processes of Garba I (Melka Kunture, Upper Awash, Ethiopia). The site, one of the largest handaxe accumulations of the African Acheulean, was extensively excavated in the 1960s of the last century by J. Chavaillon but left largely unpublished. The chronology was also poorly constricted. Quartz gr...
Melka Kunture is a cluster of Pleistocene sites, extending over ⁓100 km² between 2000 and 2200 m asl, in the upper Awash Valley of Ethiopia. Starting around 2 million-years ago, the archaeological sequence includes sites with lithic productions of the Oldowan, Early Acheulean, middle Acheulean, final Acheulean, Early Middle Stone Age, Middle Stone...
Grotte des Rhinocéros (GDR; 33.567°N, −7.701°W) is a hominin-bearing Middle Pleistocene site located on the western outskirts of Casablanca, Morocco’s economic capital. It was documented in 1991 during quarry work in the Oulad Hamida Quarry 1 (OH1), formerly known as Ben Sina 1. Together with the neighboring Thomas Quarry I sites, GDR belongs to th...
Thomas Quarry I (ThI; 33.568° N, 7.696° W) is a paleoanthropological site located on the western outskirts of Casablanca, Morocco’s economic capital. The quarry was named after its tenant operator, André Thomas. The site has produced archaeological and faunal remains that shed important light on hominin settlement history and behavioral innovations...
The exceptionally rich vertebrate locality of Ahl al Oughlam near Casablanca (Morocco) yielded abundant remains of Lagomorpha, composed of cranial and postcranial bones and many isolated teeth. They represent a new species of Prolagidae, Prolagus migrans n. sp., and two new Leporidae, Trischizolagus meridionalis n. sp. and Afrolagus pomeli n. g., n...
La succession de paléolittoraux de Casablanca représente une séquence d’une richesse exceptionnelle qui couvre les six derniers millions d’années. La lecture séquentielle des enregistrements, la caractérisation des environnements de dépôts et des données bio et géochronologiques permettent de proposer un cadre chronostratigraphique cohérent qui rep...
We describe here the first definite representative of the subfamily Elasmotheriinae in North Africa. It comes from the upper Miocene site of Skoura near Ouarzazate, on the southern slope of the Central High Atlas in Morocco. It consists of a virtually complete skull with articulated mandible and a few fragmentary postcranial remains, making it by f...
The onset of the Acheulean, marked by the emergence of large cutting tools (LCTs), is considered a major technological advance in the Early Stone Age and a key turning point in human evolution. The Acheulean originated in East Africa at ~ 1.8-1.6 Ma and is reported in South Africa between ~ 1.6 and > 1.0 Ma. The timing of its appearance and develop...
We describe the non-primate mammalian fauna from the late Pliocene to earliest Pleistocene deposits of Mille-Logya in the Lower Awash Valley, Ethiopia, dated to c. 2.9–2.4 Ma, and divided into three successive units: Gafura, Seraitu, and Uraitele. We identify 41 mammalian taxa (including rodents), the most diverse group being the Bovidae, with 17 t...
The Old World fossil record of the family Camelidae is patchy, but a new partial cranium and some other remains of Camelus grattardi from the Mille-Logya Project area in the Afar, Ethiopia, greatly increase the fossil record of the genus in Africa. These new data – together with analysis of unpublished and recently published material from other sit...
Extant colobine monkeys are specialized leaf eaters. But during the late Miocene, western Eurasia was home to colobines which were less efficient at chewing leaves than they were at breaking seed shells. To understand the link between folivory and granivory in this lineage, the dietary niche of Mesopithecus delsoni and M. pentelicus was investigate...
The rise and spread of tropical grasslands was a signal event in the Cenozoic, causing many ungulates to evolve adaptations to a diet of graminoid tissues, or graminivory. In parallel, a lineage of monkeys (Theropithecus) is distinguished among primates for its large size and commitment to graminivory, a trait expressed by species throughout the Pl...
This document presents the code, data and analysis used in the paper ‘From leaves to seeds: The dietary shift in late Miocene
colobine monkeys of southeastern Europe’ co-authored by Ghislain THIERY, Corentin GIBERT, Franck GUY, Vincent LAZZARI,
Nikolaï SPASSOV, Denis GERAADS and Gildas MERCERON. Its objective was to investigate the origins of the e...
A new compilation of the Old World fossil record of Camelidae and a recent phylogenetic analysis allow a new assessment of the timing of the clade’s diversification. Using a recent implementation of the fossilized birth-death process, we show that the divergence between Bactrian camel and dromedary has a peak probability density around 1 Ma and pro...
Several hypotheses posit a link between the origin of Homo and climatic and environmental shifts between 3 and 2.5 Ma. Here we report on new results that shed light on the interplay between tectonics, basin migration and faunal change on the one hand and the fate of Australopithecus afarensis and the evolution of Homo on the other. Fieldwork at the...
The late Miocene locality Hadjidimovo in Southwestern Bulgaria has yielded a huge collection of mammalian fossils, including a complete skull of MachairodusKaup, 1833, first described (in Bulgarian) by Kovachev (2002). We re-describe it here, compare it with other Machairodus, and review the evolution of the genus. We conclude that the transition f...
To date, in Africa, evidence for animal processing and consumption in caves routinely used as living spaces is only documented in the late Middle Pleistocene of the North and South of the continent and postdates the Middle Pleistocene in East Africa. Here we report the earliest evidence in a North-African cave (Grotte des Rhinocéros at Casablanca,...
Quarante années de recherches à Casablanca (Maroc): nouveaux regards sur l’Archéologie et la géologie du Pléistocène inférieur et moyen
Dans la région de Casablanca, le développement des dépôts littoraux de la séquence quaternaire est exceptionnel, il commence aux environs de 6 millions d’années (Miocène supérieur) et s’étend tout le long des pério...
We describe here several specimens of the genus Theropithecus from the southern shore of Lake Assal in the Republic of Djibouti; they are the first record of the genus from this country. We assign them to a derived stage of T. oswaldi. This identification has implications for the age of the informal 'Formation 1' from this area, which should probab...
We describe a virtually complete proboscidean cranium and other remains from the late Miocene of Skoura near Ouarzazate, Morocco, assigning them to a derived species of Tetralophodon. African finds of this genus are scarce and are of additional interest due to their potential importance for elephantid phylogeny. The Skoura material adds significant...
We describe here the Turolian (late Miocene) faunas from several fossiliferous localities at Gorna Sushitsa (South-Western Bulgaria). The composite fauna is typical for the Turolian of the Balkan. The stratigraphically lowermost locality, GS2, yields more primitive stages of Adcrocuta eximia and Paramachaerodus orientalis than at Pikermi, and could...
in: Excursion Post-Congrès, 15è PanAf-Rabat 2018 / FielExcursion 15th Congress of Panafrican Archaeological Association for Prehistory and related Studies. H. Aouraghe, Local Organizing Committee ed.
The Early Pleistocene Transition from the Oldowan to the Acheulean in eastern Africa was roughly contemporaneous with a number of other events commonly assumed to be connected with hominin evolution. I review here the large mammal evidence, well documented in several major eastern African sites. Definite conclusions are hard to reach because of tem...
This study represents the first extensive systematic investigation of the Miocene mammalian faunas of the Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), stored in the Macedonian Museum of Natural History, Skopje. They range in age from perhaps the early Miocene to the early Ruscinian, but the bulk of the fossils represent middle Turolian mammals. At least 57 taxa...
We describe the oldest known European ruminant, Bachitherium thraciensis sp. nov., from late Eocene (latest Bartonian or early Priabonian) strata in Bulgaria. The new specimen, which possesses the most primitive dental morphology known in the Bachitheriidae
family, predates its western European relatives by at least 4.5 myr. The discovery suggests...
Today, the family Giraffidae is restricted to two genera endemic to the African continent, Okapia and Giraffa, but, with over ten genera and dozens of species, it was far more diverse in the Old World during the late Miocene. We attempt to describe here how several species may have shared feeding resources in the Eastern Mediterranean. Dietary pref...
Objectives: The Middle Turolian mammal age is known in Southeast Europe as a time of bloom of the
so called "Pikermian" fauna with dominance of hipparions and a number of bovids. Different opinions
were expressed about the Balkans environment of that's time. Recent investigations approve the
opinion that the climate and landscape were similar to th...
We describe here the whole collection of Camelus thomasi Pomel, 1893 from the Pleistocene type-locality Tighennif (Ternifine) in Algeria. Detailed morphological and metric comparisons with the two species of modern Camelus Linnaeus, 1758, C. bactrianus Linnaeus, 1758 and C. dromedarius Linnaeus, 1758, show that it is clearly distinct from both of t...
The late Miocene Bovidae from the Nawata Formation of Lothagam were all assigned to modern tribes by Harris (2003), with the majority of specimens being referred to a species of Aepyceros, a genus that includes the modern impala. However, an alternative interpretation of the collection lessens the modern character of the faunal composition. Many of...
Although the divergence of the Panthera clade from other Felidae might be as old as the earliest middle Miocene, its fossil record before the Pliocene is virtually non-existent. Here we reassess the affinities of a felid from the early upper Miocene of Turkey, known by well-preserved associated upper and lower dentitions. We conclude that it belong...
The whole collection of Suidae from Kanapoi is revised in the context of the systematics and evolution of Nyanzachoerus in the Pliocene of Eastern Africa. It contains only two species, Nyanzachoerus kanamensis and Notochoerus jaegeri. The size and morphology of their premolars overlap, but not those of their m3s. No transitional form between them i...
We update here our recent revision of the Kanapoi ruminants and describe recently collected material. We now regard the occurrence of reduncins as doubtful, we revise the identification of a large raphicerin as being more probably Gazella, and we add Gazella cf. janenschi and the Cephalophini to the faunal list. New material of Tragelaphus kyaloi s...
The Kanapoi collection of Rhinocerotidae, first studied by Hooijer and Patterson (1972), now consists of 25 specimens and substantial reinterpretation of their affinities is made here. Kanapoi post-dates the extinction of Brachypotherium and the whole collection belongs to the Dicerotini. It is important because it includes the type-specimen of Dic...
The timing and location of the emergence of our species and of associated behavioural changes are crucial for our understanding of human evolution. The earliest fossil attributed to a modern form of Homo sapiens comes from eastern Africa and is approximately 195 thousand years old, therefore the emergence of modern human biology is commonly placed...
Mots-clés – Mammifères, Néogène, Biochronologie, Paléobiogéographie, Maroc. Résumé – Le Néogène continental au Maroc est essentiellement restreint au domaine atlasique et anti-atlasique. Il est reconnu dans les Hauts-plateaux, les grandes cuvettes de la Bahira de Tadla, de la Haute et la Moyenne Moulouya et de la plaine de Taourirt-Guercif ; dans l...
The upper Miocene locality of Mahmutgazi in Western Turkey was excavated in the 70s by a German team, but most of its large mammals had never been studied. The collection housed in the Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde, Karlsruhe, contains, besides previously published groups, large samples of Giraffidae (Samotherium), Rhinocerotidae (including a n...
Dating fossil hominids and reconstructing their environments is critically important for understanding
human evolution. Here we date the potentially oldest hominin, Graecopithecus
freybergi from Europe and constrain the environmental conditions under which it thrived.
For the Graecopithecus-bearing Pikermi Formation of Attica/Greece, a saline aeoli...
Geopedal structures in giraffid long-bones from Pyrgos Vassilissis.
Sediment infill of bones (a, TE 124; b, TE 130) overgrown by geopetal sparry calcite, which provides a palaeo-horizon for palaeomagnetic analysis of Pyrgos.
(TIF)
Grain-size spectra for palaeosol samples from the Graecopithecus horizon of Pyrgos (Pikermi Formation, Attica Basin).
Measured grain size distribution (GSD, shown as a grey area in each diagram) versus fitted grain spectra (red line) using the simplified end-member (EM) spectra (Fig 11) from the Pikermi Formation of the nearby Mesogea basin (EM1—bl...
Ionic composition of soluble salts from eolian silt of the Pikermi Formation (Attica and Mesgea Basins).
(XLSX)
Measurements of Hippotherium brachypus from Pyrgos Vassilissis.
Dimensions (in mm) of the cranial fragment AMPG 02, the premolar row TE 114, and the mandibular fragment AMPG 03. The definitions of measurements (italics) follows [84].
(XLSX)
Giraffid mandibular tooth dimensions.
cf. Palaeotragus sp. from Pyrgos Vassilissis, compared to Palaeotragus rouenii and Bohlinia attica (MNHN: Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris) (in mm; L–length, W–width, H—height). Heights of unworn teeth are in bold.
(XLSX)
Grain-size spectra for samples from Azmaka palaeosoils (Ahmatovo Formation, Upper Thrace Basin).
Measured GSD versus fitted grain spectra using simplified end-member (EM) spectra from the Pikermi Formation (Mesogea Basin) for the aeolian components only (EM1—blue, EM2—magenta). The r2 value for each diagram represents the variance of the GSD explai...
Detailed counts of pollen and micro-charcoal from the Pikermi Formation (Athens and Mesogea Basins).
(XLSX)
Pedogenic carbonate δ18O and δ13C data from the Pikermi Formation (Athens and Mesogea Basins).
(XLSX)
