Reconstructing the climatic niche breadth of land use for animal production during the African Holocene

Abstract

Aim: Domestic animals first appeared in the archaeological record in northern Africac. 9000 years before present and subsequently spread southwards throughout the continent. This geographic expansion is well studied and can broadly be explained in terms of the movement of pastoralist populations due to climate change. However, no studies have explicitly evaluated changes in the climatic niche of these domesticates. A priori, one cannot assume a relationship between the geographic spread of animal production and changes in climatic niche breadth because their relationship is highly variable. Therefore, we investigated Holocene changes in the climatic niche of domestic animals (animal production) and compared these to changes in the climatic niche of hunted terrestrial ungulates. Location: The African continent.Time period: 9000-500 BP.Major taxa studied: Domestic animals, hunted (wild) terrestrial ungulates.Methods: For the first time, we applied methods from environmental niche dynamics to archaeological data to reconstruct and quantify changes in the climatic niche breadth of animal production during the African Holocene. We used faunal remains from archaeological assemblages and associated radiocarbon dates to estimate the proportion of the African climate space used for animal production and hunting at 500-year intervals. Results:We found that the climatic niche of domestic species broadened significantly with the geographic spread, most notably during the termination of the African Humid Period, whilst no such broadening occurred for the climatic niche of hunted species. Main conclusions:Our results provide a quantitative measure of the extent to which humans have constructed and adapted the climatic niche of animal production to manage their domestic animals across increasingly diverse ecological conditions. By incorporating ecological analysis into estimations of past land use, our methods have

Mapping Food Production in Hyper Arid and Arid Saharan Africa in the Holocene. A View from the Present

“…The In North Africa and the Sahara the general trend toward present day aridity began around 5k years ago [44,45]. Post 5k aridification was a main driver in opening new pastures to domestic livestock, fostering the diffusion of pastoralism into sub-Saharan Africa [21]. Nevertheless, the Sahara was not abandoned 5k years ago, and pastoral societies responded to climate change with the adoption of different types of stock and changing their settlement patterns [46,47].…”

“…17,20] (Figure 3. To overcome this limitations, Phelps and colleagues [21] provided maps of climate suitability for animal husbandry at 500-year intervals for the last 10k years, focusing on the modeling of niches suitable to pastoralism at the continental level. This work represents an exceptional attempt at modeling the extension on areas suitable to pastoral societies in Africa.…”

Dark Side Archaeology: Climate Change and Mid-Holocene Saharan Pastoral Adaptation

“…5000 BP. A study by Phelps et al ( 2019 , p. 9) shows that “the most obvious increase in the domestic animal climatic niche (ca. 4500 BP) occurred during the end of the AHP when both a strong reduction in the cover of tropical trees and Sahelian grassland cover and spatially extensive dust mobilization occurred.”…”

“…Neolithic pastoralists devised two main strategies to deal with the mid-Holocene environmental crises: (1) migration in search of new favorable lands (Holl 1998 , 2013 ; Phelps et al 2019 ) and (2) local cultural adjustments (Di Lernia 2006 ; Di Lernia et al 2013 ) via “bad times” innovative livestock management strategies. Western and Finch’s ( 1986 ) observational and experimental research on cattle husbandry in drought contexts provides good actualistic referentials.…”

“…Climate change is the ideal illustration of punctuated equilibria with different periodicities. High-resolution paleoenvironmental research on the Holocene has now allowed the detection of many abrupt climate change events in the past 10,000 years (Armitage et al 2015 ; Phelps et al 2019 ). These studies have demonstrated the selective pressures that climate change has exerted on long-term cultural adaptation.…”