@article {330640,
	title = {Arid, mosaic environments during the Plio-Pleistocene transition and early hominin dispersals in northern Africa},
	journal = {Nature Communications},
	volume = {15},
	year = {2024},
	month = {2024/10/04},
	pages = {8393},
	abstract = {<p>The earliest archaeological evidence from northern Africa dates to ca. 2.44\&thinsp;Ma. Nevertheless, the palaeoenvironmental setting of hominins living in this part of the continent at the Plio-Pleistocene transition remains poorly documented, particularly in comparison to eastern and southern Africa. The Guefa{\"\i}t-4 fossil site in eastern Morocco sheds light on our knowledge of palaeoenvironments in northern Africa. Our study reveals the oldest known presence of C4 plants in the northern part of the continent in a mosaic landscape that includes open grasslands, forested areas, wetlands, and seasonal aridity. This diverse landscape and resource availability likely facilitated the occupation of the region by mammals, including potentially hominins. Our regional-scale study provides a complementary perspective to global-scale studies and highlights the importance of considering the diversity of microhabitats within a given region when studying species-dispersal dynamics.</p>
},
	isbn = {2041-1723},
	doi = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-52672-0},
	url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-52672-0},
	author = {Ram{\'\i}rez-Pedraza, Iv{\'a}n and Tornero, Carlos and Aouraghe, Hassan and Rivals, Florent and Patalano, Robert and Haddoumi, Hamid and Exp{\'o}sito, Isabel and Rodr{\'\i}guez-Hidalgo, Antonio and Mischke, Steffen and Van der Made, Jan and Pi{\~n}ero, Pedro and Blain, Hugues-Alexandre and Roberts, Patrick and Jha, Deepak Kumar and Agust{\'\i}, Jordi and S{\'a}nchez-Bandera, Christian and Lemjidi, Abdelkhalek and Benito-Calvo, Alfonso and Moreno-Ribas, Elena and Oujaa, A{\"\i}cha and Mhamdi, Hicham and Souhir, Mohamed and Aissa, Al Mahdi and Chac{\'o}n, M. Gema and Sala-Ramos, Robert}
}
