TY - JOUR A1 - Trauth, Martin H. T1 - Spectral analysis in quaternary sciences JF - Quaternary science reviews : the international multidisciplinary research and review journal N2 - Spectral analysis is a technique of time-series analysis that decomposes signals into linear combinations of harmonic components. Rooted in the 19th century, spectral analysis gained popularity in palaeoclimatology since the early 1980s. This was partly due to the availability of long time series of past climates, but also the development of new, partly adapted methods and the increasing spread of affordable personal computers. This paper reviews the most important methods of spectral analysis for palaeoclimate time series and discusses the prerequisites for their application as well as advantages and disadvantages. The paper also offers an overview of suitable software, as well as computer code for using the methods on synthetic examples. KW - Spectral analysis KW - Paleoclimate KW - Orbital forcing KW - MATLAB Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2021.107157 SN - 0277-3791 SN - 1873-457X VL - 270 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Maslin, Mark A. A1 - Brierley, Chris M. A1 - Milner, Alice M. A1 - Shultz, Susanne A1 - Trauth, Martin H. A1 - Wilson, Katy E. T1 - East African climate pulses and early human evolution JF - Quaternary science reviews : the international multidisciplinary research and review journal N2 - Current evidence suggests that all of the major events in hominin evolution have occurred in East Africa. Over the last two decades, there has been intensive work undertaken to understand African palaeoclimate and tectonics in order to put together a coherent picture of how the environment of East Africa has varied in the past. The landscape of East Africa has altered dramatically over the last 10 million years. It has changed from a relatively flat, homogenous region covered with mixed tropical forest, to a varied and heterogeneous environment, with mountains over 4 km high and vegetation ranging from desert to cloud forest. The progressive rifting of East Africa has also generated numerous lake basins, which are highly sensitive to changes in the local precipitation-evaporation regime. There is now evidence that the presence of precession-driven, ephemeral deep-water lakes in East Africa were concurrent with major events in hominin evolution. It seems the unusual geology and climate of East Africa created periods of highly variable local climate, which, it has been suggested could have driven hominin speciation, encephalisation and dispersal out of Africa. One example is the significant hominin speciation and brain expansion event at -1.8 Ma that seems to have been coeval with the occurrence of highly variable, extensive, deep-water lakes. This complex, climatically very variable setting inspired first the variability selection hypothesis, which was then the basis for the pulsed climate variability hypothesis. The newer of the two suggests that the long-term drying trend in East Africa was punctuated by episodes of short, alternating periods of extreme humidity and aridity. Both hypotheses, together with other key theories of climate-evolution linkages, are discussed in this paper. Though useful the actual evolution mechanisms, which led to early hominins are still unclear and continue to be debated. However, it is clear that an understanding of East African lakes and their palaeoclimate history is required to understand the context within which humans evolved and eventually left East Africa. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. KW - Human evolution KW - East Africa KW - Palaeoclimatology KW - Palaeoliminology KW - Tectonics KW - Hominin KW - Orbital forcing KW - Cenozoic climate transitions KW - Pulsed climate variability hypothesis Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2014.06.012 SN - 0277-3791 VL - 101 SP - 1 EP - 17 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER -