The Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) has led a paper just published in the Journal of Maps, according to which, with the help of drones, it has been possible to obtain high-resolution aerial images and topographies, fundamental to compiling the first detailed map of the High Plateaus Basin, a region in Eastern Morocco key to understanding human evolution in North Africa during the Quaternary.

“We used the drones from our Digital Mapping and 3D Analysis Laboratory to analyze how the landscape in this intramountain basin in the Atlas chain has evolved, and thus distinguish the different geological formations”, says the lead author of this work, Alfonso Benito Calvo, head of the Geomorphology and Formation Processes line of research at CENIEH.

Enlace Fuente: juegosiesta.com

In the zone studied, there are abundant geological materials on great plains marked by fluvial channels which led finally to the formation of shallow lakes and wetlands. From that moment, deep valleys began to be incised, leaving fluvial terraces and buttes, formed under arid conditions with frequent climatic changes.

“Numerous archaeological remains of different chronologies are preserved today in this geological record, indicating the great potential of the region for studying the archaeological history of North Africa from the Pliocene to the present day”, states Benito Calvo.

This work was conducted under the auspices of a Spanish-Moroccan project, directed by the IPHES (Instituto Catalán de Paleoecología Humana y Evolución Social), in Tarragona, and Mohammed I University (Oujda, Morocco), and has institutional support from the local and regional authorities of the Moroccan province of Jerada,  the Fundación Palarq and the MInisterio de Cultura y Deporte.