Articles | Volume 19, issue 9
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1847-2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1847-2023
Research article
 | 
25 Sep 2023
Research article |  | 25 Sep 2023

Multi-proxy speleothem-based reconstruction of mid-MIS 3 climate in South Africa

Jenny Maccali, Anna Nele Meckler, Stein-Erik Lauritzen, Torill Brekken, Helen Aase Rokkan, Alvaro Fernandez, Yves Krüger, Jane Adigun, Stéphane Affolter, and Markus Leuenberger

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Cited articles

Adigun, J.: Investigating the archaeological implications of environmental change during the Middle Stone Age: a contribution from the geochemical analysis of speleothems in the southern Cape, South Africa, Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, https://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/21240 (last access: 21 August 2023), 2016. 
Affek, H. P., Bar-Matthews, M., Ayalon, A., Matthews, A., and Eiler, J. M.: Glacial/interglacial temperature variations in Soreq cave speleothems as recorded by “clumped isotope” thermometry, Geochim. Cosmochim. Ac., 72, 5351–5360, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2008.06.031, 2008. 
Affolter, S., Fleitmann, D., and Leuenberger, M.: New online method for water isotope analysis of speleothem fluid inclusions using laser absorption spectroscopy (WS-CRDS), Clim. Past, 10, 1291–1304, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-10-1291-2014, 2014. 
Affolter, S., Häuselmann, A., Fleitmann, D., Edwards, R. L., Cheng, H., and Leuenberger, M.: Central Europe temperature constrained by speleothem fluid inclusion water isotopes over the past 14 000 years, Sci. Adv., 5, eaav3809, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aav3809, 2019. 
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The southern coast of South Africa hosts some key archeological sites for the study of early human evolution. Here we present a short but high-resolution record of past changes in the hydroclimate and temperature on the southern coast of South Africa based on the study of a speleothem collected from Bloukrantz Cave. Overall, the paleoclimate indicators suggest stable temperature from 48.3 to 45.2 ka, whereas precipitation was variable, with marked short drier episodes.