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Quaternary landforms, sediments, depositional environments and gastropod isotope ratios at Adrar Bous, Tenere Desert of Niger, south-central Sahara

1987; Geological Society of London; Volume: 35; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1144/gsl.sp.1987.035.01.08

2041-4927

M. A. J. Williams, Paul I. Abell, B. W. Sparks,

Geology and Paleoclimatology Research

Summary Sediments deposited in a variety of environments including fluviatile sands and gravels, aeolian sands, lacustrine clays and diatomites, and swamp clays crop out in and around Adrar Bous, an isolated ring-complex in the northern Tenere Desert of Niger. These sediments range from Recent to at least Middle Pleistocene in age, and contain both reworked and primary-context stone artefact assemblages testifying to recurrent prehistoric occupation of the plains around the massif from at least Upper Acheulian times onwards. During the early Holocene a small lake, stable at 710 m a.s.l. supported a community of Epi-Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers who also ate aquatic foods until the lake dried out at around 7500–7000 bp . Occupation of the piedmont plains resumed during 6000–4000 bp when Neolithic pastoralists grazed their cattle around a smaller lake stable at 700 m a.s.l. The Holocene mollusc assemblage and the stable isotope ratios obtained for different species of Holocene gastropods are entirely consistent with, and help to refine, the palaeoenvironmental reconstruction based upon stratigraphic and sedimentary analyses supplemented by the use of prehistoric stone tool assemblages as ‘zonal fossils’.