Comment on "Intensifying weathering and land use in Iron Age Central Africa"

Science. 2012 Aug 31;337(6098):1040; author reply 1040. doi: 10.1126/science.1221820.

Abstract

Bayon et al. (Reports, 9 March 2012, p. 1219) claim that the "rainforest crisis" in Central Africa centered around 2500 years before the present "was not triggered by natural climatic factors" and that it was caused by widespread deforestation resulting from the arrival of the Bantu colonists. However, there is a consensus among palaeoecologists that this landscape change and the related physical erosion it caused was due mainly to a shift to more seasonal rainfall regime.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Comment

MeSH terms

  • Agriculture / history*
  • Climate Change*
  • Conservation of Natural Resources*
  • Geologic Sediments / chemistry*
  • Humans
  • Trees*