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Radiocarbon Dating and Paleoclimatic Significance of Subfossil Limicolaria in Northwestern Sudan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

C. Vance Haynes Jr.  and
Albert R. Mead
C. Vance Haynes Jr.
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721 USA Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721 USA
Albert R. Mead
Affiliation:
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721 USA
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Abstract

The discovery, identification, and radiocarbon dating of the large achatinid land snail Limicolaria kambeul chudeaui at six places in northwestern Sudan, north of the 100-mm isohyet, provide convincing evidence that at least 300 mm annual rainfall existed there 6000 yr ago. Since then the rainfall north of ca. 20°N lat in the eastern Sahara has certainly been <300 mm and probably <200 mm. Accelerator mass spectrometry has allowed the organic fraction, presumably conchiolin, to be accurately radiocarbon dated whereas carbonate fractions are ca. 600 yr too old. Comparative studies show the subfossil form, L. k. chudeaui, to be the most primitive in its species complex and to occupy a narrow east-west belt across Africa north of 15°N and west of 35°E. The northern limit of living forms lies within the southern part of the Sahelian zone in forest or forest-savanna. They cannot live in open grassland. Therefore, the distribution of L. k. chudeaui marks the former northern position of this zone during the middle Holocene, indicating a latitudinal shift of at least 5° (500 km).

Type
Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , July 1987 , pp. 86 - 99
Copyright
University of Washington

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