Multi-proxy evidence of Late Quaternary climate and vegetational history of north-central India: Implication for the Paleolithic to Neolithic phases

AbstractThe Lake Tilla crater lake in northeastern Nigeria (10°23′N, 12°08′E) provides a ca. 17,000 14C yr multiproxy record of the environmental history of a Sudanian savanna in West Africa. Evaluation of pollen, diatoms, and sedimentary geochemistry from cores suggests that dry climatic conditions prevailed throughout the late Pleistocene. Before the onset of the Holocene, the slow rise in lake levels was interrupted by a distinct dry event between ca. 10,900 and 10,500 14C yr B.P., which may coincide with the Younger Dryas episode. The onset of the Holocene is marked by an abrupt increase in lake levels and a subsequent spread of Guinean and Sudanian tree taxa into the open grass savanna that predominated throughout the Late Pleistocene. The dominance of the mountain olive Olea hochstetteri suggests cool climatic conditions prior to ca. 8600 14C yr B.P. The early to mid-Holocene humid period culminated between ca. 8500 and 7000 14C yr B.P. with the establishment of a dense Guinean savanna during high lake levels. Frequent fires were important in promoting the open character of the vegetation. The palynological and palaeolimnological data demonstrate that the humid period terminated after ca. 7000 14C yr B.P. in a gradual decline of the precipitation/evaporation ratio and was not interrupted by abrupt climatic events. The aridification trend intensified after ca. 3800 14C yr B.P. and continued until the present.

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Loving Stones

10.1093/oso/9780190086718.001.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

David L. Haberman

Keyword(s):

Central India ◽

North Central ◽

History Of ◽

The Rich ◽

Sacred Mountain ◽

Interpretive Strategies ◽

A Site ◽

The Comparative Study ◽

Textual Research ◽

Theoretical Considerations

Loving Stones: Making the Impossible Possible in the Worship of Mount Govardhan is based on ethnographic and textual research with two major objectives. First, it is a study of the conceptions of and worshipful interactions with Mount Govardhan, a sacred mountain located in the Braj region of north-central India that has for centuries been considered an embodied form of Krishna. In this capacity it provides detailed information about the rich religious world associated with Mount Govardhan, much of which has not been available in previous scholarly literature. It is often said in that Mount Govardhan “makes the impossible possible” for devoted worshipers. This investigation includes an examination of the perplexing paradox of an infinite god embodied in finite form, wherein each particular form is non-different from the unlimited. Second, it aims to address the challenge of interpreting something as radically different as the worship of a mountain and its stones for a culture in which this practice is quite alien. This challenge involves exploration of interpretive strategies that aspire to make the incomprehensible understandable, and engages in theoretical considerations of incongruity, inconceivability, and like realms of the impossible. This aspect of the book includes critical consideration of the place and history of the pejorative concept of idolatry (and secondarily, its twin, anthropomorphism) in the comparative study of religions. Accordingly, the second aim aspires to use the worship of Mount Govardhan as a site to explore ways in which scholars engaged in the difficult work of representing other cultures struggle to “make the impossible possible.”

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Cambrian stratigraphy and depositional history of the northern Indian Himalaya, Spiti Valley, north-central India

Geological Society of America Bulletin ◽

10.1130/b25828.1 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 118 (3-4) ◽

pp. 491-510 ◽

Cited By ~ 69

Author(s):

P. M. Myrow ◽

K. R. Thompson ◽

N. C. Hughes ◽

T. S. Paulsen ◽

B. K. Sell ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Central India ◽

Depositional History ◽

North Central ◽

Indian Himalaya ◽

History Of

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Late Quaternary climate variability as recorded by micropalaeontological diatom data and geochemical data in the western Ross Sea, Antarctica

Antarctic Science ◽

10.1017/s0954102013000199 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 25 (6) ◽

pp. 804-820 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

R. Tolotti ◽

C. Salvi ◽

G. Salvi ◽

M.C. Bonci

Keyword(s):

Continental Slope ◽

Ross Sea ◽

Late Quaternary ◽

Ice Sheet ◽

Geochemical Data ◽

Flow Paths ◽

Ice Flow ◽

Quaternary Climate ◽

History Of ◽

Geochemical Analyses

AbstractCores acquired from the Ross Sea continental shelf and continental slope during the XXX Italian Programma Nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide (PNRA) were analysed and yielded interesting micropalaeontological, biostratigraphic diatom results and palaeoceanographic implications. These multi-proxy analyses enabled us to reconstruct the glacial/deglacial history of this sector of the Ross embayment over the last 40 000 years, advancing our understanding of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) environmental and sedimentological processes linked to the Ross Sea ice sheet/ice shelf fluctuations in a basin and continental-slope environment, and allowed us to measure some of the palaeoceanographic dynamics. The central sector of the Ross Sea and part of its coast (south of the Drygalski Ice Tongue) enjoyed open marine conditions in the pre-LGM era (27 500–24 000 years bp). The retreat of the ice sheet could have been influenced by a southward shift of a branch of the Ross gyre, which triggered early deglaciation at c. 18 600 cal bp with a significant Modified Circumpolar Deep Water inflow over the continental slope at c. 14 380 cal BP. We assume that a lack of depositional material in each core, although at different times, represents a hiatus. Other than problems in core collection, this could be due to the onset of modern oceanographic conditions, with strong gravity currents and strong High Salinity Shelf Water exportation. Moreover, we presume that improvements in biostratigraphy, study of reworked diatom taxa, and lithological and geochemical analyses will provide important constraints for the reconstruction of the LGM grounding line, ice-flow lines and ice-flow paths and an interesting tool for reconstructing palaeo-sub-bottom currents in this sector of the Ross embayment.

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Late Quaternary sediments and geomorphic history of north-central Vancouver Island

Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences ◽

10.1139/e81-001 ◽

1981 ◽

Vol 18 (1) ◽

pp. 1-12 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

D. E. Howes

Keyword(s):

Late Quaternary ◽

Lacustrine Sediments ◽

Late Glacial ◽

Vancouver Island ◽

Time Span ◽

Quaternary Sediments ◽

Single Exposure ◽

North Central ◽

Sedimentary Environments ◽

History Of

Materials from two glacial and two nonglacial intervals are identified on north-central Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The oldest Pleistocene unit, Muchalat River drift, consists of till and overlying glaciolacustrine silt. It has been tentatively correlated with Dashwood drift of the Semiahmoo Glaciation. An overlying single exposure of mudflow sediment in the Gold River valley contains wood dated at 40 900 ± 2000 years BP within the time span of the Olympia nonglacial interval. The Olympia nonglacial interval was characterized by a period of degradation in which Olympia-age sediments were deposited in transient sedimentary environments and subsequently eroded. Gold River drift includes Gold River advance deposits, Gold River till, and Gold River late glacial deposits, and was deposited during the Fraser Glaciation. The Fraser Glaciation was well underway on north-central Vancouver Island by 25 200 ± 330 years BP. During the Fraser Glaciation maximum, which occurred after 20 600 ± 330 years BP, Coast Mountain ice flowed in a southwesterly direction across north-central Vancouver Island overtopping all but the highest peaks of the Vancouver Island Mountains. Deglaciation commenced prior to 12 930 ± 160 years BP and the ice had probably disappeared before 9500 years ago. During postglacial times rivers have dissected older Quaternary sediments and bedrock up to at least 40 m. Macroflora data recorded in postglacial lacustrine sediments suggest that the Hypsithermal Interval commenced before 8300 ± 70 years BP.

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Doma: a new multi-technological lithic occurrence in the Lower Son Valley (north-central India) and its regional context

Geological Society London Special Publications ◽

10.1144/sp515-2020-205 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. SP515-2020-205

Author(s):

Shashi B. Mehra

Keyword(s):

Central India ◽

Raw Material ◽

Long Bone ◽

Sedimentary Sequence ◽

Initial Report ◽

North Central ◽

History Of ◽

Bone Fragments ◽

Topographical Mapping ◽

Mammalian Fossil

AbstractThe Lower Son Valley is generally overlooked despite a lengthy history of archaeological and geological studies in the adjacent Middle Son Valley. However, recent explorations in the former have yielded a large number of Palaeolithic and microlithic sites. This paper provides an initial report on Doma, a newly discovered site with the first-known stratified bifaces in this part of the valley. The site preserves multi-period technologies in different contexts including terminal Acheulean/early Middle Palaeolithic, and Upper Palaeolithic (all tentatively assigned based on respective typologies). Preliminary field observations are presented on the sedimentary sequence, archaeological surveys, topographical mapping, raw material, and the overall palaeoanthropological assessment of Doma. The raw material utilised at the site is primarily porcellanite, derived from exposures of the Semri Group of the Vindhyan Supergroup. The oldest Palaeolithic evidence at Doma broadly resembles Late Acheulean sites dated to ∼140-120 ka in the nearby Middle Son Valley. The Pleistocene sediments here also yielded mammalian fossil specimens such as long bone fragments, dental specimens and antler fragments. Along with the lithics and fossils, the site also preserves datable sedimentary sequence with calcrete, all key proxies to develop a testable model of technological transitions within a palaeoenvironmental framework, in the future.

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