Response to comments on "Intensifying weathering and land use in iron age Central Africa"

Abstract

Neumann et al. argue that terrestrial evidence does not support our interpretation of large-scale human land use in Central Africa about 2500 years ago and that climate was the main driver of the rainforest crisis at that time, and Maley et al. raise a number of concerns about our interpretation of data from chemical weathering proxies. Taking into account existing palaeoclimatic data and clarifying some misconceptions, we reassert that humans must also have contributed fundamentally to this large vegetation change.