Annett Junginger

University of Tuebingen | EKU Tübingen · Department of Geosciences

Lake Naivasha, Kenya's second-largest freshwater body is a wetland of international ecological importance and currently subjected to unprecedented anthropogenic influence. The study aims to chronologically reconstruct the main human activities and background weathering reactions that govern metal mobilizations into the lake and their potentially ad...

The Early-Middle Pleistocene Transition (EMPT) between 1200 and 700 ka represents a major global climate transition from dominantly 41,000- to 100,000-year glacial cycles. The forces and mechanisms behind this transition and the response of African environments are not well understood. The active volcanism and tectonics of the East African Rift Sys...

Das Einzugsgebiet des Flusses Ammer mit den angrenzenden Lössflächen des oberen Gäus und dem Waldgebiet des Schönbuchs repräsentiert einen vielfältigen mitteleuropäischen Landschafts-, Natur-und Kulturraum. Die komplexe Entwicklung dieses Raumes lässt sich sowohl aus einer kultur-geschichtlichen als auch aus der landschafts-und ökosystembezogenen P...

Sedimentary ancient DNA ( seda DNA) has proven to be a useful tool for palaeoenvironmental studies, but only a handful of studies exist so far for tropical regions. In this study we used seda DNA to study the temporal succession of Brachionus spp. rotifer mitochondrial DNA haplotypes using two sediment cores from two climatically different alkaline...

The East African Rift System (EARS) is a key location for studying Plio-Pleistocene paleoclimate and hominin inhabitance. The region experienced profound reorganization during this interval as a response to volcanism, tectonics and climate change, and arguably detailed spatiotemporally coherent climate datasets could provide evidence of causal link...

This paper evaluates risk-oriented frameworks for explaining environmental, social, and economic changes faced by fishing and herding communities in the Turkana Basin during and after the African Humid Period (AHP, 15–5 ka). The orbitally-forced AHP created moist conditions, high lake levels, and unusual hydrological connections across much of nort...

Despite more than half a century of hominin fossil discoveries in eastern Africa, the regional environmental context of hominin evolution and dispersal is not well established due to the lack of continuous palaeoenvironmental records from one of the proven habitats of early human populations, particularly for the Pleistocene epoch. Here we present...

Southern Ethiopia has undergone tremendous climatic changes, from dry and relatively cold during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 25–18 ka) to the African Humid Period (AHP, 15–5 ka), and back to present-day dry conditions. As a contribution to better understand the effects of climate change on vegetation and lakes, we here present a Predictive Veget...

During the Early Holocene, climate was the major factor causing fires, but whether during the Mesolithic (~11.5–7.4 cal ka BP) people co‐shaped their environment by means of fire remains of debate. Few studies have tackled this question by linking high‐resolution multi‐proxy palaeoecological studies from near Mesolithic occupation sites. An Early H...

During the last African Humid Period (AHP; 15–5 ka), many lakes in the East African Rift System (EARS) experienced pronounced lake-level variations that dramatically transformed the hydrological landscape. Currently dry, saline or marshy-wetland terminal lakes became vast waterbodies, interconnected via overflow sills resulting in the formation of...

Im ersten Halbjahr 2021 fanden eine Schubladen-Inventarisierung und eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme der Paläontologischen Sammlung in Tübingen statt. Dafür wurde sechs Monate lang ein Sammlungsmanager als Unterstützung der Kustodie angestellt. In Zusammenarbeit mit der Arbeitsgruppe Mikropaläontologie gelang es, im Team eine fundierte Basis für die...

During the past 25 ka, southern Ethiopia has undergone tremendous climatic changes, from dry and relatively cold during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 25–18 ka) to the African Humid Period (AHP, 15–5 ka), and back to present-day dry conditions. As a contribution to better understand the effects of climate change on vegetation and lakes, we here pre...

Diatoms, a common siliceous alga, are effective paleoclimate and pollution indicators. They have been used in northern, eastern, and southern Africa as such because of well-documented ecologies of many taxa. In southwestern Africa, however, the country of Angola lacks similar modern as-semblage studies. To close this gap, modern diatoms were sample...

Lithics and cut-marked mammal bones, excavated from the paleo-lake Marathousa 1 (MAR-1) sediments in the Megalopolis Basin, southern Greece, indicate traces of hominin activity occurring along a paleo-shoreline ca. 444,000 years (444 ka) ago. However, the local environment and climatic conditions promoting hominin activity in the area during the MI...

Reconstructions of climatic and environmental conditions can contribute to current debates about the factors that influenced early human dispersal within and beyond Africa. Here we analyse a 200,000-year multi-proxy paleoclimate record from Chew Bahir, a tectonic lake basin in the southern Ethiopian rift. Our record reveals two modes of climate cha...

We present new mineralogical and geochemical data from modern sediments in the Chew Bahir basin and catchment, Ethiopia. Our goal is to better understand the role of modern sedimentary processes in chemical proxy formation in the Chew Bahir paleolake, a newly investigated paleoclimatic archive, to provide environmental context for human evolution a...

The formation of the East African Rift System led to the emergence of large topographical contrasts in southern Ethiopia. This extreme topography is in turn responsible for an extreme gradient in the distribution of precipitation between the dry lowlands (~500 mm a-1) in the surrounding of Lake Turkana and the moist western Ethiopian Highlands (~2,...

Understanding the levels and associated ecological risk caused by heavy metals is important for the sustainable management and utilization of Lake Chilwa catchment, an important ecosystem in Malawi providing fertile lands for agriculture and a designated wetland ratified by the Ramsar convention in 1997. Concentrations of chromium (Cr), copper (Cu)...

The Upper Neckar and Ammer River valleys in southwestern Germany correspond to the southwestern limit of the overall distribution of the oldest Linear Bandkeramik (LBK) culture. More than 200 Neolithic sites are known from this region, with one of the oldest sites located in the vicinity of the village Ammerbuch-Pfäffingen, 10 km west of Tübingen,...

The Ethiopian rift is known for its diverse landscape, ranging from arid and semi-arid savannahs to high and humid mountainous regions. Lacustrine sediments and paleo-shorelines indicate water availability fluctuated dramatically from deep fresh water lakes, to shallow highly alkaline lakes, to completely desiccated lakes. To investigate the role l...

The Upper Neckar and Ammer river valleys in southwestern Germany correspond to the southwestern limit of the overall distribution of the oldest Linear Bandkeramik (LBK) culture. More than 200 Neolithic sites are known from this region, with one of the oldest sites located in the vicinity of the village Ammerbuch-Pfäffingen, 10 km west of Tübingen,...

The Neogene and Quaternary are characterized by enormous changes in global climate and environments, including global cooling and the establishment of northern high-latitude glaciers. These changes reshaped global ecosystems, including the emergence of tropical dry forests and savannahs that are found in Africa today, which in turn may have influen...

The aim of this study was to assess the levels and distribution of heavy metals in Lake Chilwa and its catchment, and to understand the associated level of pollution. Water and sediment samples were collected from the lake and main inflowing rivers. A total of 23 surface water samples were sampled and analysed for pH, EC, Cu, Cr, Zn, Cd, Pb, As and...

This study aimed the inventory and record the flowering time of the epiphytic orchids occurring in the study area. Seven transects within the CPCN-Pró-Mata were observed monthly during a period of 26 months from September 2000 to September 2002. Further observations were conducted in March-April 2017. Twenty two species of orchids were found in the...

Eastern African hydroclimate in the early Holocene created a lush landscape in what is commonly referred to as the African Humid Period (AHP: ∼15 to 5 ka). The termination of the AHP was characterised by a climatic shift towards drier conditions. This resulted in the desiccation of many lakes and may have pressured hunter-gather societies to move t...

Lake Nakuru in Kenya, located south of the equator on the East African Plateau, is one of the many modern, shallow saline lakes in the East African Rift System (EARS). Despite today's lake composition throughout the EARS, many of these lakes were instead deep, freshwater lakes 15,000 to 5,000 years ago during the African Humid Period (AHP), due to...

The sediments of the Chew Bahir playa lake in southern Ethiopia were cored down to 280 m depth in the context of HSPDP (Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project) and CRC (Collaborative Research Center) 806 "Our way to Europe" projects. The main aim is to reconstruct the paleoenvironmental conditions during the development of anatomically moder...

Recent archeological and genetic evidence suggests that anatomically modern humans migrated out of Africa potentially as early as ~220,000 years B.P. Understanding the dynamics of cultural, technological and societal evolution of Homo sapiens needs profound knowledge of associated environmental conditions. To better understand how and why migration...

The Kenyan and Ethiopian rifts in eastern Africa are known for their diverse landscape, ranging from arid and semi-arid savannahs to high and lush mountainous regions, where anatomically modern humans were present since ∼195 ka BP. Lacustrine sediments and paleo-shorelines indicate water availability fluctuated dramatically during this period from...

The application of a new particle collection system (PCS) developed in-house and operated on board a commercially available multicopter unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is presented as a new unmanned aerial system (UAS) approach for in situ measurement of the concentration of aerosol particles such as pollen grains and spores in the atmospheric bounda...

The application of a new particle collection system (PCS) onboard a multicopter unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is presented as a new unmanned aerial system (UAS) approach for in-situ measurement of the concentration of aerosol particles such as pollen grains and spores in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL). A newly developed impactor is used for h...

The measurement of grain sizes is a standard method in lacustrine and marine sediment analysis in order to understand sedimentation processes. For grain sizes smaller than 63 µm two of the most commonly used analytical devices are Micromeritics Sedigraph ® and Malvern Mastersizer ®. Both devices measure particle diameters considering the particles...

We present results of deglacial sea-level history and associated sedimentation changes from a 11 m-long sediment section of core SO121-KL46. The core was sampled from the continental shelf in the Gulf of Aden, close to the strait of Bab al-Mandab from 383 m of modern water depth. The homogeneously colored core reveals sporadic occurrence of large (...

How do we convert variabilities and trends in hundreds of potential parameters that are typically analyzed in the framework of a scientific drilling project to actual climate proxies? Using the case study from the Chew Bahir core from the southern Ethiopian Rift, we will show that deciphering climate information from lake sediments is challenging,...

Sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) has been proven to be a useful tool for paleoenvironmental studies, but only a handful exist for tropical regions. We here present sedaDNA analyses dating back to 1800 AD on two sediment cores from two crater lakes from the Kenyan Rift Valley. These alkaline-saline lakes have experienced different climatic and anth...

Approximately 400 orchid species, distributed in 120 genera, are found in the RS state, Brazil. The highest concentration of orchids are in the eastern part of the state in the moist, mountainous Araucaria Forest, part of the Atlantic Forest. The CPCN-Pró-Mata is located within this region and has a climate which favours the growth of epiphytic pla...

We used a change point analysis on a late Pleistocene–Holocene lake-sediment record from the Chew Bahir basin in the southern Ethiopian Rift to determine the amplitude and duration of past climate transitions. The most dramatic changes occurred over 240 yr (from ~15,700 to 15,460 yr) during the onset of the African Humid Period (AHP), and over 990...

Deciphering paleoclimate from lake sediments is a challenge due to the complex relationship between climate parameters and sediment composition. Here we show the links between potassium (K) concentrations in the sediments of the Chew Bahir basin in the Southern Ethiopian Rift and fluctuations in the catchment precipitation/evaporation balance. Our...

The nature and amplitude of past environmental changes and their postulated correlation with steps in the evolution of humans, with their cultural and technological developments, and with their expansion out of Africa, are all subject to continuing debate. We present a change point analysis of a Late Quaternary high-resolution lake-sediment record...

A 12 m long sediment sequence was recovered from the eastern Dendi Crater lake, located on the central Ethiopian Plateau and in the region of the Blue Nile headwaters. 24 AMS radiocarbon dates from bulk organic carbon samples indicate that the sediment sequence spans the last ca. 12 cal kyr BP. Sedimentological and geochemical data from the sedimen...

The limited availability of high-resolution continuous archives, insufficient chronological control, and complex hydro-climatic forcing mechanisms lead to many uncertainties in palaeo-hydrological reconstructions for the Western Mediterranean. In this study we present a newly recovered 19.63 m long core from Lake Sidi Ali in the North African Middl...

A 12 m long composite sediment sequence from Dendi crater lakes, located on the central Ethiopian Plateau, was recovered during a field campaign in March and April 2012. The sediment sequence was analysed with sedimentological and geochemical methods including XRF scanning, grain size measurements, and the determination of total organic carbon (TOC...

Our understanding of the impact of climate-driven environmental change on prehistoric human populations is hampered by the scarcity of continuous paleoenvironmental records in the vicinity of archaeological sites. Here we compare a continuous paleoclimatic record of the last 20 ka before present from the Chew Bahir basin, southwest Ethiopia, with t...

The role that climate and environmental history may have played in influencing human evolution has been the focus of considerable interest and controversy among paleoanthropologists for decades. Prior attempts to understand the environmental history side of this equation have centered around the study of outcrop sediments and fossils adjacent to wh...

We welcome the comment by Wright and Forman (2016) on our paper as a useful opportunity to stimulate the discussion around interdisciplinary comparative approaches using palaeoenviron- mental and archaeological data. The authors of the comment ques- tion our interpretation of the archaeological record, and the concept of a Holocene refugium in the...

In search of the environmental context of the evolution and dispersal of Homo sapiens and our close relatives within and beyond the African continent, the ICDP-funded Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project (HSPDP) has recently cored five fluvio-lacustrine archives of climate change in East Africa. The sediment cores collected in Ethiopia and...

The role that climate and environmental history may have played in influencing human evolution has been the focus of considerable interest and controversy among paleoanthropologists for decades. Prior attempts to understand the environmental history side of this equation have centered around the study of outcrop sediments and fossils adjacent to wh...

Chew Bahir, a deep tectonically-bound basin in southern Ethiopia, today covered by ~2000 km2 of saline mudflats, is a newly explored and recently ICDP-cored climatic archive, containing a several kilometer thick infill of fine lacustrine deposits. The site lies in close proximity to the Lower Omo, site of the oldest known fossils of anatomically mo...

Episodes of environmental stability and instability may be equally important for African hominin speciation, dispersal, and cultural innovation. Three examples of a change from stable to unstable environmental conditions are presented on three different time scales: (1) the Mid Holocene (MH) wet-dry transition in the Chew Bahir basin (Southern Ethi...

Our understanding of the impact of climate-driven environmental change on prehistoric human populations is hampered by the scarcity of continuous paleoenvironmental records in the vicinity of archaeological sites. Here we compare a continuous paleoclimatic record of the last 20 ka before present from the Chew Bahir basin, southwest Ethiopia, with t...

The Chew Bahir basin, as a newly explored sedimentary climatic archive, lies in a biogeographically highly sensitive transition zone between the Main Ethiopian Rift and the Omo-Turkana basin, the region where the fossils of the oldest known anatomically modern human were found. Thus, a continuous climatic history from this area could give valuable...

Klimaschwankungen und eine sich rasch verändernde Umwelt könnten erheblichen Einfluss auf die menschliche Evolution, Wanderungsbewegungen, und kulturelle als auch technische Entwicklungen gehabt haben. Um diesen möglichen Einfluss von kurzfristigen Klimaschwankungen und langfristigen Klimaänderungen auf verschiedenen Zeitskalen auf den frühen Mensc...

A rapidly changing environment is considered an important driver not just for human evolution but also for cultural and technological innovation and migration. To evaluate the impact that climatic shifts on different timescales might have had on the living conditions of prehistoric humans is one of the cornerstones in current research, but continuo...

Rapid changes in environmental conditions are considered to be an important driver for human evolution, cultural and technological innovation, and expansion out of Africa. However, the nature of these environmental changes, their amplitude and correlation with steps in human evolution is the subject of current debates. Here we present a high-resolu...

During the African Humid Period (AHP, 15–5 ka BP) an almost 300 m deep paleo-lake covering 2200 km2 developed in the Suguta Valley, in the Northern Kenya Rift. Data from lacustrine sediments and paleo-shorelines indicate that a large paleo-lake already existed by 13.9 ka BP, and record rapid water level fluctuations of up to 100 m within periods of...

The water-level record from the 300 m deep paleo-lake Suguta (Northern Kenya Rift) during the African Humid Period (AHP, 15–5 ka BP) helps to explain decadal to centennial intensity variations in the West African Monsoon (WAM) and the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM). This water-level record was derived from three different sources: (1) grainsize variat...

East African paleoenvironments are highly variable, marked by extreme fluctuations in moisture availability, which has far-reaching implications for the origin, evolution and dispersal of Homo sapiens in and beyond the region. This paper presents results from a pilot core from the Chew Bahir basin in southern Ethiopia that records the climatic hist...