Coastal foraging on the West Coast of South Africa in the midst of mid-Holocene climate change

Abstract

The mid-Holocene (ca. 8200–4200 cal BP) brought about important climatic changes and environmental shifts to land and coastal systems, globally. Many of the human groups existing at that time were affected in various degrees by such important modifications to their foraging areas, including shorelines. Higher sea-levels (+1–3 m) were a prominent factor reshaping coastal landscapes and thus affecting coastal foraging in one or more ways. Hot and dry weather and relatively higher sea levels along the central west coast of South Africa impacted substantially on local coastal hunter-gatherer groups. These challenges were thought once to have been unsurmountable because of an apparent absence of sites dated to this period. Recently dated mid-Holocene assemblages allow us to gain insight into coastal resource procurement and overall subsistence, and also to derive more detailed coastal paleoecological data. The results show a predominantly terrestrial diet, while shellfish collection persisted amid prevailing environmental factors affecting mussel growth by supplementing their reduced mollusk takes with additional prey. Sizeable crustaceans were also procured in relatively large numbers in some localities, but not in all. This is the most-up-to date mid-Holocene subsistence record for the central west coast of South Africa which, apart from reconstructing changes in procurement strategies, reveals a trajectory of persistence in the face of climate change.