Was there mid Holocene habitation in Madagascar? A reconsideration of the OSL dates from Lakaton'i Anja

Anderson, Atholl

doi:10.15184/aqy.2018.161

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…This last paper [60] and the previous two [58,59] lead again to a dating which fits the linguistics one for the main colonization event.…”

Section: Archaeologysupporting

confidence: 63%

“…Some cautious rethinking about human presence on the island can be found in [58], where the authors underline the nonexistence of butchery marks prior of about 1200 years BP. Moreover, their close analysis of the Lakaton'i Anja chronology suggests the site dates 1500 years BP or more recent, while older dating is due to extensive bioturbation at the site [59]. According to the authors, these findings indicate initial human colonization of Madagascar 1350-1100 years BP.…”

Section: Archaeologymentioning

confidence: 98%

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Dialects of Madagascar

Serva

Pasquini

2020

PLoS ONE

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All results in this paper are based upon a new dataset consisting in 60 Swadesh lists of 207 items, overall 12,420 terms collected during 2018-2019. Each list corresponds to a different variety of Malagasy, which is not simply identified by the name of the ethnicity but also by the precise location where the variety was collected. This is very important since some traditional ethnic groups are a heritage of historical events rather than representing communities with similar habits and dialects. This new dataset is by far the best available, both for dimension and completeness. The varieties are classified both by standard tools, as the trees generated by UPGMA and NJ which privilege genealogy by detecting vertical transmissions, and by a new method which privileges horizontal exchanges. The new method results in a two-dimensional chart of Madagascar which realistically reproduces geography despite being generated only by comparison of words. The landing date of the ancestors of Malagasy is determined about 650 CE. This result is obtained by a straightforward approach based on the comparison of the UPGMA Malagasy family tree with the analogous tree of Romance family of languages for which all dates are well historically attested. We also propose an improved definition of Diversity computed for every locus in Madagascar and not only in places where the dialects were collected. Moreover, Diversity becomes a locally determined quantity as it is usually in biology. Diversity differences point to the SouthEast coast as the location where the first colonizers landed or, at least, where Malagasy variants started their dispersion. Finally, we find that the dialect spoken by the Mikea, a hunter-gatherer people in the SouthWest of Madagascar, is not very different from the variants of their neighbours Vezo and Masikoro. Therefore, Mikea unlikely can be linked to eventual aboriginal populations living in Madagascar prior to the main colonization event in 650 CE.

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“…This last paper [60] and the previous two [58,59] lead again to a dating which fits the linguistics one for the main colonization event.…”

Section: Archaeologysupporting

confidence: 63%

Section: Archaeologymentioning

confidence: 98%

Dialects of Madagascar

Serva

Pasquini

2020

PLoS ONE

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“…At this stage, two alternative explanations can be given: (1) Assuming a generation time of 10 years, this major decline would have occurred within the last four millennia, and could originate from a change in fire regime. Indeed, since the human colonization of Madagascar during the Early Holocene if not earlier (Hansford et al, 2018; but see: Anderson, 2019;Douglas et al, 2019), the frequency of fire ignition may have continuously risen as a consequence of population density (Guyette et al, 2002). Major fire peak traces, likely due to the advent of agro-pastoralism, have been dated to the last millennium (Burney et al, 2003;Dewar, 2014;Voarintsoa et al, 2017).…”

Section: Recent Demographic History Of N Lowryimentioning

confidence: 99%

Late Miocene origin and recent population collapse of the Malagasy savanna olive tree (Noronhia lowryi)

Salmona

Olofsson

Hong‐Wa

et al. 2019

Biological Journal of the Linnean Society

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Debates regarding the origin of tropical savannas have attempted to disentangle the role of human, biotic and abiotic factors. Understanding the origins of savanna remains essential to identifying processes that gave rise to habitat mosaics, particularly those found in the Central Plateau of Madagascar. Documenting the evolutionary history and demography of native trees occurring in open habitats may reveal footprints left by past and recent environmental changes. We conducted a population genetic analysis of an endangered Malagasy shrub (Noronhia lowryi, Oleaceae) of the Central Plateau. Seventy-seven individuals were sampled from three sites and genotyped at 14 nuclear and 24 chloroplast microsatellites. We found a highly contrasting nuclear and plastid genetic structure, suggesting that pollen-mediated gene flow allows panmixia, while seed-based dispersal may rarely exceed tens of metres. From a phylogeny based on full plastomes, we dated the surprisingly old crown age of maternal lineages back to ~6.2 Mya, perhaps co-occurring with the global expansion of savanna. In contrast, recent demographic history inferred from nuclear data shows a bottleneck signature ~350 generations ago, probably reflecting an environmental shift during the Late Pleistocene or the Holocene. Ancient in situ adaptation and recent demographic collapse of an endangered woody plant highlight the unique value and vulnerability of the Malagasy savannas.

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“…However, timing and modality of these early occupations are still debated. Except for cut marks on bones, no direct human evidence (archeological artifacts) has been described for the early Holocene (Hansford et al, 2018), while for the mid-Holocene, radiocarbon dating are controversial (Anderson et al, 2018;Anderson, 2019). The recent synthesis of Douglass et al (2019) suggests that hunters/foragers populations inhabited the island at least since 2000 cal BP.…”

Section: Regional Implications In Northwestern Madagascarmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Madagascar, characterized by one of the world's biologically richest ecosystems, does not deviate from this rule. Early human colonization and its impact on natural environmental changes of this island has been intensively debated for decades (Burney et al, 2003;Virah-Sawmy et al, 2010;Dewar et al, 2013;Anderson et al, 2018;Anderson, 2019;Godfrey et al, 2019;Crowley et al, 2021). Whereas initial settlement of Madagascar prior to 2000 cal BP still remains poorly resolved (Dewar et al, 2013;Anderson et al, 2018;Hansford et al, 2018;Douglass et al, 2019), recent studies on speleothems from northwestern Madagascar suggested that a major ecosystem shift, recorded at ca.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rain Forest Fragmentation and Environmental Dynamics on Nosy Be Island (NW Madagascar) at 1300 cal BP Is Attributable to Intensified Human Impact

et al. 2022

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Madagascar houses one of the Earth’s biologically richest, but also one of most endangered, terrestrial ecoregions. Although it is obvious that humans substantially altered the natural ecosystems during the past decades, the timing of arrival of early inhabitants on Madagascar as well as their environmental impact is still intensively debated. This research aims to study the beginning of early human impact on Malagasy natural ecosystems, specifically on Nosy Be island (NW Madagascar) by targeting the sedimentary archive of Lake Amparihibe, an ancient volcanic crater. Based on pollen, fungal spore, other non-pollen palynomorph, charcoal particle and diatom analyses combined with high-resolution sediment-physical and (in)organic geochemical data, paleoenvironmental dynamics during the past three millennia were reconstructed. Results indicate a major environmental change at ca. 1300 cal BP characterized by an abrupt development of grass (C4) dominated and fire disturbed landscape showing the alteration of natural rain forest. Further, increased soil erodibility is suggested by distinct increase in sediment accumulation rates, a strong pulse of nutrient input, higher water turbidity and contemporaneous increase in spores of mycorrhizal fungi. These parameters are interpreted to show a strong early anthropogenic transformation of the landscape from rain forest to open grassland. After ca. 1000 cal BP, fires remain frequent and vegetation is dominated by forest/grassland mosaic. While natural vegetation should be dominated by rain forest on Nosy Be, these last results indicate that human continuously impacted the landscapes surrounding the lake. At a local scale, our data support the “subsistence shift hypothesis” which proposed that population expansion with development of herding/farming altered the natural ecosystems. However, a precise regional synthesis is challenging, since high-resolution multi-proxy records from continuous sedimentary archives as well as records located further north and in the hinterland are still scarce in Madagascar. The lack of such regional synthesis also prevents precise comparison between different regions in Madagascar to detect potential (dis)similarities in climate dynamics, ecosystem responses and anthropogenic influences at the island’s scale during the (late) Holocene.

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Was there mid Holocene habitation in Madagascar? A reconsideration of the OSL dates from Lakaton'i Anja

Abstract: Abstract

Cited by 5 publications

References 22 publications

Dialects of Madagascar

Dialects of Madagascar

Late Miocene origin and recent population collapse of the Malagasy savanna olive tree (Noronhia lowryi)

Rain Forest Fragmentation and Environmental Dynamics on Nosy Be Island (NW Madagascar) at 1300 cal BP Is Attributable to Intensified Human Impact

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