New ages for human occupation and climatic change at Lake Mungo, Australia
New ages for human occupation and climatic change at Lake Mungo, Australia
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DOI：
10.1038/nature01383
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发表时间：
2003-02-20
期刊：
影响因子：
64.8
通讯作者：
Spooner, NA
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bowler, JM;Johnston, H;Spooner, NA
在芒果湖发现的澳大利亚最古老的人类遗骸包括世界上最古老的赭石葬礼(芒果三世)(1)和第一次有记录的火化(芒戈一世)(2)。到目前为止，这些发现的重要性一直受到有限的年表和古环境信息的限制(3)。芒戈三世是世界上最古老的人类线粒体DNA(4)的来源，有不同的估计，包括3万年(KYR)前(1)，42-45年KYR(5，6)和62+/-6 KYR(7，8)，而放射性碳估计芒戈一号火化接近20-26 KYR(2，9，10)。在这里，我们报告了一系列新的25个光学年龄，表明这两个埋葬发生在40+/-2 KYR之前，人类在50-46 KYR前出现在芒果湖，与最初占领澳大利亚北部(11，12)和西澳大利亚(13)同步或很快。地层学证据表明，从50到40 KYR以前，随着沙尘沉积的增加、人类的到来和整个大陆的大型动物灭绝，湖泊填满和更干燥的条件之间波动(14)，(15)。紧随其后的是40至30年前的持续干旱。这一新的年表修正了之前对这个重要地点人类埋葬的估计，并提供了一幅智人适应世界上最干燥的有人居住的大陆日益恶化的气候的新图景。
Australia's oldest human remains, found at Lake Mungo, include the world's oldest ritual ochre burial (Mungo III)(1) and the first recorded cremation (Mungo I)(2). Until now, the importance of these finds has been constrained by limited chronologies and palaeoenvironmental information(3). Mungo III, the source of the world's oldest human mitochondrial DNA(4), has been variously estimated at 30 thousand years (kyr) old(1), 42-45 kyr old(5,6) and 62 +/- 6 kyr old(7,8), while radiocarbon estimates placed the Mungo I cremation near 20-26 kyr ago(2,9,10). Here we report a new series of 25 optical ages showing that both burials occurred at 40 +/- 2 kyr ago and that humans were present at Lake Mungo by 50-46 kyr ago, synchronously with, or soon after, initial occupation of northern(11,12) and western Australia(13). Stratigraphic evidence indicates fluctuations between lake-full and drier conditions from 50 to 40 kyr ago, simultaneously with increased dust deposition, human arrival and continent-wide extinction of the megafauna(14),(15). This was followed by sustained aridity between 40 and 30 kyr ago. This new chronology corrects previous estimates for human burials at this important site and provides a new picture of Homo sapiens adapting to deteriorating climate in the world's driest inhabited continent.