Search publications of the members of the Royal Belgian institute of natural Sciences
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Impact of an irregular sampling by the MERIS satellite on eutrophication monitoring products for WFD and MSFD applications.
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Versteningen in het Zand van Brussel Algemene evaluatie met betrekking tot het voorkomen van zandsteen in een bouwput gelegen Leopold III laan te Evere
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Nile behaviour and Late Palaeolithic humans in Upper Egypt during the Late Pleistocene
- The reconstruction of the environment and the human population history of the Nile Valley during the Late Pleistocene have received a lot of attention in the literature thus far. There seems to be a consensus that during MIS2 extreme dry conditions prevailed over north-eastern Africa, which was apparently not occupied by humans. The Nile Valley seems to be an exception; numerous field data have been collected suggesting an important population density in Upper Egypt during MIS2. The occupation remains are often stratified in, or at least related to, aeolian and Nile deposits at some elevation above the present-day floodplain. They are rich in lithics and animal bones, mainly fish, illustrating the exploitation of the Nile Valley by the Late Palaeolithic inhabitants. The fluvial processes active during that period have traditionally been interpreted as a continuously rising highly braided river. In this paper we summarize the evidence thus far available for the Late Pleistocene on the population densities in the Nile Valley, and on the models of Nilotic behaviour. In the discussion we include data on the environmental conditions in Eastern Africa, on the aeolian processes in the Western Desert of Egypt derived from satellite images, 14C and OSL dates, in order to formulate a new model that explains the observed high remnants of aeolian and Nilotic deposits and the related Late Palaeolithic sites. This model hypothesizes that, during the Late Pleistocene, and especially the LGM, dunes from the Western Desert invaded the Nile Valley at several places in Upper Egypt. The much reduced activity of the White Nile and the Blue Nile was unable to evacuate incoming aeolian sand and, as a consequence, several dams were created in the Upper Egyptian Nile Valley. Behind such dams the created lakes offered ideal conditions for human subsistence. This model explains the occurrence of Late Palaeolithic hunter–fisher–gatherers in a very arid environment with very low Nile flows, even in late summer. Keywords: River Nile; Late Palaeolithic; Egypt; Geomorphology; Late Glacial Maximum (LGM); Late Pleistocene; Endorheic environment
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Ngirhaphium Evenhuis & Grootaert from southern Thailand (Diptera: Dolichopodidae) with the description of a new species
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Insight from stable isotopes into the ecology of late Neandertals
- The "Troisième caverne" of Goyet yielded recently new human remains that belong to the latest Neandertals and earliest “MH in Northwestern Europe. Together with the late Neandertals from the nearby site of Spy and the coeval faunal remains from Scladina cave, this ”elgian bone material provides a unique opportunity to investigate the potential ecological and cultural differences among the last Neandertals and first “MH in North-western Europe. This study focuses on collagen isotopic results on human and animal bones. Collagen is the predominant protein in bone and its isotopic composition directly provides insights in ecological aspects such as diet, habitat, and landscape use patterns of both hominins as well as the herbivorous and carnivorous mammal species. Statistical treatment of the obtained isotopic raw data with statistical software R and JMP yielded quantitative estimates of the trophic relationships among the animal and human species.The isotopic analysis of several elements carbon, nitrogen allowed amongst other aspects to establish the ecological niche partitioning and the prey-predator relationships at Scladina, Spy and Goyet caves, all sites being relatively close to each other ±km and of similar age. These isotopic results show that the dietary strategies of Neandertals from Goyet are very similar to those of Spy, with a high dietary contribution of mega-herbivores. We compared these results with the ones obtained from the AMHs corresponding to the Aurignacian technocomplex from "Troisième caverne" of Goyet in Belgium. On the other hand the sulfur isotopic composition of collagen being linked to the characteristics of the bedrock, significant differences were found within and across the sites, which are interpreted as indicating dierent foraging areas for several mammal species including the Neandertals and “MH from Spy and Goyet.
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Avian but also invertebrate predators are drivers of chemical defensive strategies in tenthredinids
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Avian but also invertebrate predators are drivers of chemical defensive strategies in tenthredinids
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A climate-driven model using time-series analysis of magnetic susceptibility (x) datasets to represent a floating-point high-resolution geological timescale for the Middle Devonian Eifelian stage
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Emsian (Lower Devonian) conodont stratigraphy and correlation of the Anti-Atlas (Southern Morocco)
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Les reptiles marins du Toarcien (Jurassique inférieur) belgo-luxembourgeois
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Simolestes keileni sp. nov., un pliosaure (Plesiosauria, Reptilia) du Bajocien supérieur de Lorraine (France)
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Zür Stellung der Dromatheriidae (Ober-Trias) zwischen den Cynodontia und den Mammalia
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The Europan Ichthyopterygia: a re-assessment
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The skull of Stenopterygius longifrons
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Les grands ichthyosaures sinémuriens d’Arlon
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Présence de Leptopterygius tenuirostris (Reptilia, Ichthyosauria) dans le Lias moyen de Lorraine belge
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Présence d’insectes dans le Toarcien inférieur de la Belgique
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Les vertébrés fossiles des terrains mésozoïques de Lorraine belge et les fouilles récentes de l’Institut royal des Sciences naturelles de Belgique
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New data on Brachyzostrodon
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Dental variation in the genus Pan
