title: Comment on "Intensifying weathering and land use in Iron Age Central Africa".
abstract: Bayon et al. (Reports, 9 March 2012, p. 1219) claim that the "rainforest crisis" in Central Africa centered around 2500 years before the present "was not triggered by natural climatic factors" and that it was caused by widespread deforestation resulting from the arrival of the Bantu colonists. However, there is a consensus among palaeoecologists that this landscape change and the related physical erosion it caused was due mainly to a shift to more seasonal rainfall regime.
authors.affiliation: Département Paléoenvironnements et Paléoclimatologie, Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier, CNRS/UMR 5554, Université de Montpellier-2, Montpellier, France. jean.maley@univ-montp2.fr
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Maley
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Giresse
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Doumenge
authors.forename: Charly
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Favier
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture / Q000266:history*; D057231:Climate Change; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D019015:Geologic Sediments / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D014197:Trees