Humans may have helped the decline of African rainforests 3000 years ago

(PhysOrg.com) -- Large areas of rainforests in Central Africa mysteriously disappeared over three thousand years ago, to be replaced by savannas. The prevailing theory has been that the cause was a change in climate, and the deforestation then enabled humans to increase their agricultural activities. A new study suggests that climate change alone cannot fully explain the transition and that human activities might be implicated.