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Humans Implicated in Africa's Deforestation 3,000 Years Ago
SciTechDaily ^ | February 11, 2012 | (listed below)

Posted on 07/08/2025 6:44:20 AM PDT by SunkenCiv

A new study published in the journal Science suggests that humans might have played a significant part in the sudden deforestation of rainforests from Central Africa. This work contradicts the prevailing view that the expansion of farming practices was the root cause as well as the increased incidence of long, severe dry spells.

Germain Bayon, a geochemist at the French Research Institute for Exploration of the Sea in Plouzané, and his colleagues examined the weathering of sediment samples that were drawn from the mouth of the Congo River. Deforestation intensifies weathering; therefore the clay samples would provide a continuous record of the climate for the past 40,000 years.

The sediment cores revealed that 3,000 years ago, there was a complete decoupling between rainfall and the rate of weathering. Bayon says that this indicates that the climate alone could not be a factor to explain this deforestation.

The research team suggests that the Bantu-speaking people from present-day Nigeria and Cameroon, known to have emigrated across Central Africa 4,000 years ago, had an impact on the rainforest, since they cleared land for farming and iron smelting.

(Excerpt) Read more at scitechdaily.com ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: africa; agriculture; bantu; cameroon; centralafrica; congo; deforestation; ecoterrorism; ecoterrorists; firewood; globalwarminghoax; godsgravesglyphs; greennewdeal; ironsmelting; nigeria; smelting
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Reference: "Intensifying Weathering and Land Use in Iron Age Central Africa" by Germain Bayon, Bernard Dennielou, Joël Etoubleau, Emmanuel Ponzevera, Samuel Toucanne and Sylvain Bermell, 9 February 2012, Science.

1 posted on 07/08/2025 6:44:20 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
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(dead link, available in Web Archive)
Evolution in Your Face
by Patrick Huyghe
Omni
Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake, is home to more than 300 species of cichlids. These fish, which are popular in aquariums, are deep-bodied and have one nostril, rather than the usual two, on each side of the head. Seismic profiles and cores of the lake taken by a team headed by Thomas C. Johnson of the University of Minnesota, reveal that the lake dried up completely about 12,400 years ago. This means that the rate of speciation of cichlid fishes has been extremely rapid: something on average of one new species every 40 years!

2 posted on 07/08/2025 6:44:52 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Dear leftists, that victory was just the undercard. Time for the main event.)
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To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; 31R1O; ...

3 posted on 07/08/2025 6:45:13 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Dear leftists, that victory was just the undercard. Time for the main event.)
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To: SunkenCiv

USAID needs to hit the 3000 year old lumberjack ancestors up for “reparations”.


4 posted on 07/08/2025 6:46:29 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (Correction! America is a nation of LEGAL IMMIGRANTS! All of mine came here legally. No free stuff.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Like Haiti?


5 posted on 07/08/2025 6:48:43 AM PDT by Z28.310 (does not comply well with others)
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To: SunkenCiv

Glow bull discombobulation again! 🙄


6 posted on 07/08/2025 6:51:02 AM PDT by rktman (Destroy America from within? Check! WTH? Enlisted USN 1967 to end up with this💩? 🚫💉! 🇮🇱👍!)
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7 posted on 07/08/2025 6:59:07 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Dear leftists, that victory was just the undercard. Time for the main event.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Very racist of them to blame black people for this.


8 posted on 07/08/2025 6:59:45 AM PDT by fruser1
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To: SunkenCiv
”Bayon says that this indicates that the climate alone could not be a factor to explain this deforestation.”

Especially when there’s an agenda to foist.

9 posted on 07/08/2025 7:02:11 AM PDT by Flag_This (They're lying.)
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To: fruser1

I’m shocked they didn’t blame white people.


10 posted on 07/08/2025 7:11:37 AM PDT by Antihero101607
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To: SunkenCiv

pretty convenient when scientific conclusions line up with political agendas. get this guy a grant right away!


11 posted on 07/08/2025 7:28:28 AM PDT by wafflehouse ("there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon" -Alice's Restaurant Massacree)
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To: SunkenCiv
......they cleared land for farming and iron smelting.

I don't know if the population would have been large enough to have a significant impact on rain forest, but 4,000 years ago seems early for iron smelting. The Iron Age is generally accepted to have begun about 1200 BC.

12 posted on 07/08/2025 7:41:01 AM PDT by jimtorr
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To: SunkenCiv

Thass raciss! Africa was a paradise before the colonizers came! Wakanda forever!


13 posted on 07/08/2025 7:43:49 AM PDT by Flatus I. Maximus (I didn't leave the Democratic Party. It LEFT me, and keeps going further left. )
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To: Z28.310

Like the Great Plains during the dust bowl, due to the almost complete destruction of the deep-rooted prairie grass for farming in a region with very few trees.
Wwith no prairie grass to hold the soil in place, wind erosion devastated fields and sent everyone scurrying for California.
Instead of replanting portions of prairie, a solution was devised to plant hedgerows of Osage orange trees and windbreaks.


14 posted on 07/08/2025 7:48:37 AM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustmilents offered here free of charge)
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To: jimtorr
"but 4,000 years ago seems early for iron smelting."

Great catch. 4,000 years ago is the end of the Neolithic, not even Bronze Age yet.

15 posted on 07/08/2025 7:49:05 AM PDT by Flag_This (They're lying.)
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To: fruser1

Look what they did to the Sahara Forest!


16 posted on 07/08/2025 7:55:37 AM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: SunkenCiv

After humans “deforested” Africa, bureaucrats failed to organize and fine the crap out of said humans for doing something without first paying proper licenses, taxes, and permits. Otherwise government would have been able to save the planet.


17 posted on 07/08/2025 8:08:56 AM PDT by Blue Collar Christian (I'm a nationalist. I'm white. How does that make me racist?)
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To: SunkenCiv

“Humans Implicated in Africa’s Deforestation 3,000 Years Ago”

Let me guess... A significant lack of RAIN Implicated in Africa’s Deforestation 3,000 Years Ago.


18 posted on 07/08/2025 8:17:35 AM PDT by faucetman (Just the facts, ma'am, Just the facts )
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To: jimtorr

The article states that the Bantu expansion started 4000 years ago, and their iron smelting as an activity started some unspecified period of time after that.

Also, iron smelting may have originated in Sub-Saharan Africa around 2000 BC. The earliest known cast iron is from about 800 BC (China).

The use of meteoritic iron began quite a long time ago.


19 posted on 07/08/2025 8:44:00 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Dear leftists, that victory was just the undercard. Time for the main event.)
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To: Z28.310
Like Haiti?

And Easter Island.
20 posted on 07/08/2025 9:20:26 AM PDT by Dr. Sivana (<i>"Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye." (John 2:5))
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