From North to South: paleoenvironment according to tooth-wear analysis during the Upper Pleistocene in Bizmoune, El Khenzira and Taforalt (Morocco)
Résumé
Morocco is a geographically and climatically highly fragmented territory occupied for about 300,000 years by Homo sapiens. This area is currently characterized by the presence of four large mountain ranges but also plateaus, plains and coastlines subject to a Mediterranean-type and temperate Atlantic climate from the North to more open landscape in the South. The analysis of environmental parameters at a local level is therefore crucial for understanding the context and living environments of human populations. We present here a study of tooth wear analysis of different herbivores in human settlements distributed along a North-South axis in the sequences of Taforalt (Oujda region), El Khenzira (El Jadida region) and Bizmoune (Essaouira region) in order to review their diet. By considering these faunal associations and inferring the evolution of plant cover, we document paleoenvironmental variations according to the geographic distributions of theses 3 sites during the Upper Pleistocene.