Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Since the Middle Pleistocene, the Sahara region has undergone strong environmental changes resulting from climate changes. Dry periods, constituting an ecological barrier to human presence, alternated with wet periods when the Sahara area was covered with green savanna and an extensive network of watercourses, allowing the area to be occupied by hunter-gatherer groups. Responding to the Quaternary climatic changes, hominin dispersal was channeled through vegetated corridors. Such evidence for human settlements connected to Pleistocene green corridors in the Sahara region has been discovered in the research area called EDAR (Eastern Desert Atbara River). This area comprises a cluster of Acheulean and Middle Stone Age (MSA) sites discovered in the fluvial sedimentary context. This manuscript discusses the occurrence of Middle Pleistocene Acheulean artifacts in much younger sediments documented at the site EDAR 6. These Acheulean artifacts are present within thick Holocene calcareous sandy silts, formed between 2.7ka and 8.7ka based on an optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) chronology which is also supported by paleomagnetic analysis. The stone gravelly artifacts mantled above the eolian deposits have been known in other paleolithic sites under the desert environment of Northern Africa. We propose that the relocation of the Palaeolithic artifacts was due to long-lasting erosional and redepositional processes affecting the Acheulean artifacts-bearing sediments since the Middle Pleistocene. We interpret that as a result of the cumulative results of the two processes, i.e., the gravel framework dilation and the gravel overpassing, allowing the stone artifacts to be exposed at the surface or incorporated in the Holocene sediment layers. This study can therefore be an instructive example for many redeposited artifacts-bearing Palaeolithic sites across the Saharan Desert.
Masojć et al. (Sat,) studied this question.