Sediment and pollen evidence for an early to mid-Holocene humid period in the eastern Sahara

A major problem in the study of Holocene palaeoenvironments of the arid and wind-deflated Sahara is the low preservation potential of sediments from which a record of past climatic change can be established. Several indirect and imprecisely dated pieces of evidence have suggested humid episodes in the Holocene that may have supported more productive ecosystems and denser human populations than today. Searches for reliable proxy data on past …