Reconciling Southern Ocean fronts equatorward migration with minor Antarctic ice volume change during Miocene cooling.

Gradual climate cooling and CO decline in the Miocene were recently shown not to be associated with major ice volume expansion, challenging a fundamental paradigm in the functioning of the Antarctic cryosphere. Here, we explore Miocene ice-ocean-climate interactions by presenting a multi-proxy reconstruction of subtropical front migration, bottom water temperature and global ice volume change, using dinoflagellate cyst biogeography, benthic foraminiferal clumped isotopes from offshore Tasmania. We report an equatorward frontal migration and strengthening, concurrent with surface and deep ocean cooling but absence of ice volume change in the mid-late-Miocene.

Sensory exploitation and cultural transmission: the late emergence of iconic representations in human evolution.

Iconic representations (i.e., figurative imagery and realistic art) only started to appear consistently some 45,000 years ago, although humans have been anatomically modern since 200,000-160,000 years ago.