Evidence of stone tools and cutmarked bones dated to 2.44 and 1.92 millions years ago from Aïn Boucherit (Sétif, Algeria) and their implications on the first human occupation in North Africa

Recueil de notes séléctionnées au Workshop sur la Géologie du Quaternaire de l’Algérie SÉTIF Les 4 et 5 décembre 2019. Publicado en AlgeriaLes sites pléistocènes inférieurs d'Afrique de l'Est et ceux de Gona (Éthiopie) datés de 2,6 millions d'années en particulier, ont livré les plus anciens outils oldowayens et ossements portant des traces de découpe induites par l'utilisation de ces outils taillés par les hominidés indubitablement reconnus à ce jour. Par comparaison, les artefacts lithiques oldowayens datés d'environs 1,8 million d¿années et recueillis à Aïn Hanech (Algérie) ont été pendant longtemps considérés comme les plus anciens restes archéologiques d'Afrique du Nord. Dans cet article, nous rapportons la découverte récente de traces d'activité humaine plus anciennes. Il s'agit d'outils taillés associés directement à des traces de découpe qui ont été recueillis dans deux niveaux archéologiques distincts (inférieur : AB-Lw, et supérieur : AB-Up) du site de Aïn Boucherit, situé dans la zone d'étude de Aïn Hanech. À l'aide d'une approche multi-méthode combinant le paléomagnétisme, la datation par Résonance Paramagnétique Électronique (RPE ou ESR) et la biochronologie des grands mammifères, l'âge des niveaux archéologiques de Aïn Boucherit est estimé à ~2,44 Ma pour AB-Lw et à ~1,92 Ma pour AB-Up. Ces résultats démontrent que Aïn Boucherit préserve les plus anciennes traces archéologiques connues à ce jour en dehors du Rift Est Africain, révélant ainsi que les premiers hominidés habitaient la frange méditerranéenne en Afrique du Nord beaucoup plus tôt qu'on ne le pensait. Ces preuves plaident fortement en faveur d'une dispersion ancienne et rapide de la manufacture et de l'utilisation d'outils lithiques de type oldowayen depuis l'Afrique de l'Est, ou même d'un scénario d'une possible origine de cette technologie lithique en Afrique de l'Est et en Afrique du Nord

Incidence, prevalence and mortality rates of malaria in Ethiopia from 1990 to 2015: analysis of the global burden of diseases 2015

Background: In Ethiopia there is no complete registration system to measure disease burden and risk factors accurately. In this study, the 2015 Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk factors (GBD) data were used to analyse the incidence, prevalence and mortality rates of malaria in Ethiopia over the last 25 years. Methods: GBD 2015 used verbal autopsy (VA) surveys, reports, and published scientific articles to estimate the burden of malaria in Ethiopia. Age and gender-specific causes of death for malaria were estimated using Cause of Death Ensemble Modelling (CODEm). Results: The number of new cases of malaria declined from 2.8 million (95% uncertainty interval (UI): 1.4-4.5million) in 1990 to 621,345 (95% UI: 462,230-797,442) in 2015. Malaria caused an estimated 30,323.9 deaths (95% UI: 11,533.3-61,215.3) in 1990 and 1,561.7 deaths (95% UI: 752.8-2,660.5) in 2015, a 94.8% reduction over the 25 years. Age-standardized mortality rate of malaria has declined by 96.5% between 1990 and 2015 with an annual rate of change (ARC) of 13.4%. Age-standardized malaria incidence rate among all ages and gender declined by 88.7% between 1990 and 2015. The number of disability-adjusted life years lost (DALY) due to malaria decreased from 2.2 million (95% UI: 0.76-4.7 million) in 1990 to 0.18 million (95% UI: 0.12-0.26 million) in 2015, with a total reduction 91.7%. Similarly, age-standardized DALY rate declined by 94.8% during the same period. Conclusions: Ethiopia has achieved a 50% reduction target of malaria of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The country should strengthen its malaria control and treatment strategies to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)

Reconstructing the dynamic Middle to Late Pleistocene hominin environments of Gona, Ethiopia: A fossil soil-based study

What drove dispersals of Homo sapiens out of Africa? Reconstructing the Critical Zones (CZs) with which our early ancestors interacted over time is an essential step toward addressing this question. The well-preserved fossil soils, or paleosols found in the sedimentary record at Gona, Ethiopia, contain a geochemical archive of our past environments, alongside one of the most comprehensive East African records of hominin-related archaeology and a well-constrained chronostratigraphic history. Ten paleosol profiles near hominin fossil and artifact sites that range in age from 380 to 11 ka were analyzed to reconstruct the paleo-CZs of Gona. These ten fine-grained paleosols weathered mixed alluvium and had vertic features. δ13C values (-2.40 to -7.77 +/- 0.16 ‰) derived from pedogenic soil carbonate are consistent with previous studies that show that paleo-Vertisols with this range of isotopic values at Gona likely developed within an open floodplain, dominated by riparian grassland. The constant landscape position provides this study with a control, allowing us to track changes in climate, organisms, and duration of soil formation over time. Characterization of these paleosols revealed two distinct paleosol types (i.e., pedotypes): Alsa (“Moon” in the Afar language) and Ayro (“Sun” in Afar). Alsa paleosols were darker colored with mean soil organic carbon (SOC) of 0.92 wt. %; whereas, Ayro paleosols were lighter and had lower mean SOC of 0.14 wt. %. Mass-balance geochemistry of total soil P, an essential plant nutrient, shows an average of \u3e100 % gain in the darker Alsa paleosols compared to the lighter Ayro paleosols. Total Ca loss was greater in the Alsa (-66 %) than Ayro (-42 %), whereas total Mg loss was minimal in the Alsa (0 %), and Ayro showed Mg gain (27 %). Consistent with Ca loss, mean inorganic carbon of the \u3c2 mm fraction is lower in Alsa (0.22 wt. %) than Ayro (0.63 wt. %). Overall, these data infer that the Alsa paleosol was more productive, experiencing more biogeochemical cycling of plant nutrients. Additionally, paleo-rainfall estimates and age-modeling suggest that the Alsa paleosols weathered under wetter climates during known pluvials. This record of Middle to Late Pleistocene floodplain CZs at Gona provides evidence of climate-influenced changes on land occupied by early humans

Stratigraphy and geochronology of the late Miocene Adu-Asa Formation at Gona, Ethiopia

The Gona area includes many rich fossil localities that are of great consequence to the study of human evolution. The Adu-Asa Formation, containing the oldest of these fossils, consists of nearly 200 m of fossil-bearing sedimentary rocks in thin (≤30 m), laterally variable sections interlayered with abundant basaltic lava flows. These volcanic and sedimentary rocks dip gently to the east and are repeated by north-northwest–trending, mostly west-dipping normal faults that accommodate extension in the Afar Rift. The volcanic rocks in the Adu-Asa Formation are strongly bimodal. Basaltic lavas and tuffs are abundant, but we have also identified a rhyolite center and seven different silicic, or dominantly silicic, tuffs. Of these tuff units, we were able to identify four major tuffs across the Adu-Asa Formation at Gona by combining geochemical comparisons with detailed stratigraphic sections through fossil-bearing deposits: the Sifi, the Kobo'o, the Belewa, and the Ogoti Tuffs. New ^(40)Ar/^(39)Ar dates of these and other tuffs, as well as basalt flows, indicate that the formation spans the period from 5.2 Ma to 6.4 Ma, although the oldest deposits within the Gona Paleoanthropological Research Project (GPRP) area have yet to be thoroughly surveyed. Known fossil localities within the Adu-Asa Formation at Gona are grouped into three temporal clusters, ranging in age from ca. 6.4 Ma to ca. 5.5 Ma

A female Homo erectus pelvis from Gona, Ethiopia

Analyses of the KNM-WT 15000 Homo erectus juvenile male partial skeleton from Kenya concluded that this species had a tall thin body shape due to specialized locomotor and climatic adaptations. Moreover, it was concluded that H. erectus pelves were obstetrically restricted to birthing a small-brained altricial neonate. Here we describe a nearly complete early Pleistocene adult female H. erectus pelvis from the Busidima Formation of Gona, Afar, Ethiopia. This obstetrically capacious pelvis demonstrates that pelvic shape in H. erectus was evolving in response to increasing fetal brain size. This pelvis indicates that neither adaptations to tropical environments nor endurance running were primary selective factors in determining pelvis morphology in H. erectus during the early Pleistocene

La faune du Pléistocéne inférieur en Afrique du Nord: de la biostratigraphie à la biochronologie

Recueil de notes séléctionnées au Workshop sur la Géologie du Quaternaire de l’Algérie SÉTIF Les 4 et 5 décembre 2019. Publicado en AlgeriaThe Early Pleistocene faunal record in North Africa is well known from classic localities, documented already in the 19th century and earlier part of the 20th century, such as Aïn Boucherit and Aïn Hanech. In the second half of the 20th century, radiometric dates became available and correlations were used to estimate the ages of the earliest Pleistocene North African sites. However, isolation and long-distance correlations were not favourable for a precise chronology of the North African fossil record, leading to major discrepancies on the ages of the sites, with age estimates differing as much as one million years. Such a situation hampers research on prehistory and the correlation of observed faunal change to the published detailed climatic and environmental records.The Aïn Hanech and Oued Laatach Formations crop out in the small Oued Boucherit, where a series of fossiliferous and archaeological sites are situated in superposition in the lithostratigraphic sequence. These include the classic sites of Aïn Boucherit and Aïn Hanech, as well as the more recently discovered El-Kherba, a new fossiliferous level at Aïn Boucherit, as well as various minor localities. These sites are in a section or can be correlated to it, which has been dated using a combination of magnetostratigraphy, Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) applied to optically bleached quartz grains, sediment accumulation rates and biostratigraphy. The oldest fossiliferous site is situated in the Gilbert Chron and has an age exceeding 3.58 Ma, while the estimated ages of the archaeological sites are between 2.44 to 1.7 Ma. With these dates, biostratigraphy of this part of the North African record turns into biochronology. The lower paleontological and archaeological level at Aïn Boucherit has an inferred age of about 2.44 Ma and is, thus not more than about 140 ka, younger than the oldest sites with widely accepted stone tools, such as Gona EG10 and 12, and OGS 6 and 7 in Ethiopia, which are situated just above the Gauss

The first technical sequences in human evolution from East Gona, Afar region, Ethiopia

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The persistence of salt-affected paleosols at Gona, Ethiopia: A sedimentary archive of Middle to Late Pleistocene soil salinity within a corridor of early human migration

The origin of Homo sapiens and their subsequent dispersal out of Africa during the Mid-to-Late Pleistocene are hallmark events in the evolution of humans and are recorded as snapshots within terrestrial sedimentary deposits in East Africa. This study uses paleosols to reconstruct paleoenvironments of those events at Gona, Ethiopia - an area with one of the most continuous records of East African Paleolithic and Neolithic archaeology. A preliminary survey of Gona paleosols from the past 250,000 years shows a wide range of paleosol types that resemble modern-day Entisols, Inceptisols and Vertisols. Approximate paleosol ages were estimated using nearby OSL, 14 C, U-series, 40 Ar/ 39 Ar and volcanic glass chemistry. The pH and EC of these paleosols were measured as they are weakly compacted and show few signs of diagenesis. Mean pH values are slightly alkaline (7.8 ±0.63) and mean EC values (9.8 ±7.9) are saline, suggesting salt-affected soil development. The high standard deviation of EC results from low-EC sodic soils found in some units. These pH and EC findings are consistent with bulk geochemical-based pedotransfer functions on paleo-Vertisols, which indicate the presence of saline and sodic conditions. Much like modern-day tributary and trunk-channel floodplains, these paleosols likely hosted halophytes like Tamarix, Vachellia and salt-tolerant grasses, flora which are commonly found at present-day Gona. Notably, some late Pleistocene salt-affected paleosols that coincide with Marine Isotope Stage 5 and the African Humid Period show signs of prolonged soil saturation and nearby standing water. High evapotranspiration due to Gona’s semi-arid climate likely resulted in low infiltration and subsurface drainage of water, insufficient to transport salt out of the system, resulting in abundant saline soil formation at the site. The high salinity of Mid-to-Late Pleistocene Gona paleosols, likely due to source material, climate, and drainage, limits the use of many bulk geochemical proxies that were developed using mostly normal, non-saline soils. Despite this, the results of this study shed light on the climate and environment of our ancestors at the pedon scale