Former lakes and wetlands can provide valuable insights to the late Pleistocene environments encountered by the first humans to enter the Levant from Africa. Fluvial incision along Wadi Gharandal in hyperarid southern Jordan has exposed remnants of a small riverine wetland that accumulated as a sedimentary sequence up to ~20 m thick. We conducted a chronometric and sedimentological study of this wetland, including 10 optically stimulated luminescence dates. The wetland sequence accumulated during the period ~125 to 70 ka in response to a positive water balance coupled with a (possibly coseismic) landslide that dammed the outlet. The valley fill was dissected when the dam was incised shortly after ~36 ± 3 ka. Comparison of our ages with regional palaeoclimate indicates that the Gharandal oasis developed during the relatively humid Marine Isotope Stage 5. A minimum age of 74 ± 7 ka for two Levallois flakes collected from stratified sediments suggests that the oasis was visited by humans during the critical 130–90 ka time window of human migration out of Africa. Gharandal joins a growing network of freshwater sites that enabled humans to cross areas of the Levant and Arabia along corridors of human dispersal.

中文翻译：

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约旦南部人类迁徙路线上横跨 125–70 ka 的 Wadi Gharandal 湿地绿洲

以前的湖泊和湿地可以为第一批从非洲进入黎凡特的人类所遇到的晚更新世环境提供宝贵的见解。在约旦南部极度干旱的 Wadi Gharandal 沿线的河流切口暴露了一个小型河流湿地的残余物，该湿地以沉积序列的形式积累，厚度可达约 20 m。我们对该湿地进行了计时和沉积学研究，包括 10 个光激发发光日期。湿地序列在约 125 至 70 ka 期间积累，以响应正水平衡以及堵塞出口的（可能是同震的）滑坡。当大坝在约 36 ± 3 ka 后不久被切开时，对山谷填充物进行了解剖。将我们的年龄与区域古气候进行比较表明，Gharandal 绿洲是在相对潮湿的海洋同位素第 5 阶段发展起来的。从分层沉积物中收集的两个 Levallois 薄片的最小年龄为 74 ± 7 ka，这表明绿洲在关键的 130 –90 ka 人类迁出非洲的时间窗口。Gharandal 加入了一个不断扩大的淡水站点网络，使人类能够沿着人类传播的走廊穿越黎凡特和阿拉伯地区。