Abstract
Throughout the Holocene, Lake Turkana has been subject to drastic changes in lake levels and the subsistence strategies people employ to survive in this hot and arid region. In this paper, we reconstruct the position of the lake during the Holocene within a paleoclimatic context. Atmospheric forcing mechanisms are discussed in order to contextualize the broader landscape changes occurring in eastern Africa over the last 12,000 years. The Holocene is divided into five primary phases according to changes in the strand-plain evolution, paleoclimate, and human subsistence strategies practiced within the basin. Early Holocene fishing settlements occurred adjacent to high and relatively stable lake levels. A period of high-magnitude oscillations in lake levels ensued after 9,000 years BP and human settlements appear to have been located close to the margins of the lake. Aridification and a final regression in lake levels ensued after 5,000 years BP and human communities were generalized pastoralists-fishers-foragers. During the Late Holocene, lake levels may have dropped below their present position and subsistence strategies appear to have been flexible and occasionally specialized on animal pastoralism. Modern missionary and government outposts have encouraged the construction of permanent settlements in the region, which are heavily dependent on outside resources for their survival. Changes in the physical and cultural environments of the Lake Turkana region have been closely correlated, and understanding the relationship between the two variables remains a vital component of archaeological research.
Highlights
Lake Turkana hosts one of the longest records of human biological and behavioral evolution extending from the deep Pliocene to the present day (Barham and Mitchell 2008; Robertshaw 1995; Willoughby 2006)
The shifting water level of Lake Turkana during the Holocene correlates to changes in the subsistence and settlement economies of the region and is instructive for understanding broader processes of human adaptation to environmental change
High lake levels during the Early Holocene (EH) facilitated the evolution of an aquatic-based subsistence strategy and localized, intensive foraging along the lake’s margins
Summary
Lake Turkana hosts one of the longest records of human biological and behavioral evolution extending from the deep Pliocene to the present day (Barham and Mitchell 2008; Robertshaw 1995; Willoughby 2006). Generally pluvial conditions are inferred from 11,500 to 10,000 years BP followed by significant Middle Holocene lake level variability (Bloszies et al in press).
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