Tephra connections between environmental change and human prehistory in Ethiopia

更新世火山活动与MER产生巨大的火山碎屑沉积物广泛发现火山灰层沉积档案，如湖泊沉积物和河流阶地。由于火山灰在考古序列中的普遍存在，它们的相互关系和年代测定已经成为埃塞俄比亚（以及更广泛的东非）人类记录的年表的基础。然而，过去的MER火山活动的记录还远远没有完成，最近的工作结合了火山露头，考古，河流和湖泊沉积物序列，表明许多相关性需要用新的样品和最先进的分析协议进行测试。此外，现在已经证明了使用隐火山灰方法来填补火山记录中的关键空白，并增加沉积序列中火山灰等时线的检测和对比的潜力。

Pleistocene volcanism associated with the MER produced colossal pyroclastic deposits found widely as tephra layerswithin sedimentary archives such as lake sediments and fluvial terraces. Due to the prevalence of tephra inarchaeological sequences, their correlation and dating has become fundamental to the chronology of the hominin recordin Ethiopia (and in eastern Africa more generally). However, the record of past MER volcanism is far from complete andrecent work combining volcanic outcrop, archaeological, fluvial and lake sediment sequences, has shown that manycorrelations require testing with new samples and state-of-the-art analytical protocols. In addition, there is nowdemonstrated potential to use cryptotephra methods to fill critical gaps in the volcanological record and increase thedetection and correlation of tephra isochrons within sedimentary sequences.