title: Comment on "Intensifying weathering and land use in Iron Age Central Africa".
abstract: Bayon et al. (Reports, 9 March 2012, p. 1219) interpreted unusually high aluminum-potassium ratio values in an Atlantic sediment core as indicating anthropogenic deforestation around 2500 years before the present (B.P.). We argue that there is no terrestrial evidence for forest destruction by humans and that the third millennium B.P. rainforest crisis can be clearly attributed mostly to climatic change.
authors.affiliation: Goethe University, Institute of Archaeological Sciences, Frankfurt, Germany. k.neumann@em.uni-frankfurt.de
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Neumann
authors.forename: M K H
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Eggert
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Oslisly
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Clist
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Denham
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: de Maret
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ozainne
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hildebrand
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bostoen
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Salzmann
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Schwartz
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Eichhorn
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Tchiengué
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Höhn
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture / Q000266:history*; D057231:Climate Change; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D019015:Geologic Sediments / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D014197:Trees