On: 120k-year-old footprints offer early evidence for humans in Arabia

[sradman]

> what we call the Red Sea today was at time likely an estuary

The Red Sea Rift is quite recent [1] in geological time but not 120 kya recent.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Sea_Rift#Spreading_model

[danans → sradman]

The phenomenon that would have made it an estuary on the hominid and homo sapiens timescale is lower sea levels due to ice ages.

40% of the Red Sea is only 100 m deep, and during the last major ice age 20kya sea levels were 120 m lower than they are today.

https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-9....

[sradman → danans]

Marine Isotope Stage 5 [1] was a high sea level interglacial:

> Thus, the present interglacial, the Holocene, is compared with MIS 5 or the interglacials of Marine Isotope Stage 11.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Isotope_Stage_5