50,000 years of vegetation and climate change in the southern Namib Desert, Pella, South Africa (original) (raw)
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An investigation of the vegetation and climate from the Middle Pleistocene until the end of the Late Pleistocene reveals a plethora of terrestrial and marine biological, geological and archaeological evidence for marked and complex climate cycles of change, which reflect on past circulation patterns. While acknowledging the usefulness of diverse proxies for detecting these changes, an efficient way to summarize past events is to focus on one of them, viz. fossil pollen, which, although providing scattered and incomplete records, gives fairly direct reflections of past climates and vegetation growth. The findings are structured according to six subregions and reveal distinct changes in temperature and moisture patterns, e.g. during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and the Younger Dryas. The data suggest an environmental background against which cultural evolution took place, e.g., the appearance of Fauresmith, Still Bay, Howiesons Poort and Later Stone Age lithic industries. The pollen archives can be associated with global climate changes, as recorded in isotopes in marine sequences (Marine Isotope Stages or MISs). The observations show differences between regions, which can serve as a base for improving palaeo-data to eventually simulate past and future climates and to better understand the role of past global climates in relation to human and animal occupation in Southern Africa.
The southern Cape is a particularly dynamic region of South Africa in terms of climate change as it is influenced by both temperate and tropical circulation systems. This paper presents pollen and microcharcoal data generated from a sediment core extracted from the coastal lake Eilandvlei spanning the last 8900years.Withanaveragesampleresolutionof57years,thisrecordrepresentsthehighestresolutionrecordofHolocenevegetationchangefromtheregion.Thedataindicatethatcool,seasonalandmoderatelydryconditionscharacterizedtheWildernessEmbaymentfrom8900 years. With an average sample resolution of 57 years, this record represents the highest resolution record of Holocene vegetation change from the region. The data indicate that cool, seasonal and moderately dry conditions characterized the Wilderness Embayment from 8900years.Withanaveragesampleresolutionof57years,thisrecordrepresentsthehighestresolutionrecordofHolocenevegetationchangefromtheregion.Thedataindicatethatcool,seasonalandmoderatelydryconditionscharacterizedtheWildernessEmbaymentfrom8900 to 8000 cal a BP. Afrotemperate forests expanded from $8000 cal a BP until 4700 cal a BP. This humid period is followed by indications of more arid and seasonal conditions until 3500 cal a BP. A long-term increase in forest taxa suggests steadily increasing moisture availability across the late Holocene. Strong affinities are noted with records from more tropical regions of South Africa, suggesting that tropical systems are of importance in maintaining higher moisture availability in the region. An important mechanism of climate change is the Agulhas Current, which transmits what appears to be a localized signal of tropical variability to the southern Cape coast.
A 25,000 year record of climate and vegetation change from the southwestern Cape coast, South Africa
2021
The southwestern Cape of South Africa is a particularly dynamic region in terms of long-term climate change. We analysed fossil pollen from a 25,000 year sediment core taken from a near-coastal wetland at Pearly Beach that revealed that distinct changes in vegetation composition occurred along the southwestern Cape coast. From these changes, considerable variability in temperature and moisture availability are inferred. Consistent with indications from elsewhere in southwestern Africa, variability in Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) was identified as a strong determinant of regional climate change. At Pearly Beach, this resulted in phases of relatively drier conditions (∼24–22.5 cal ka BP and ∼22–18 cal ka BP) demarcated by brief phases of increased humidity from ∼24.5–24 cal ka BP and 22.5–22 cal ka BP. During glacial Termination I (∼19–11.7 ka), a marked increase in coastal thicket pollen from ∼18.5 to 15.0 cal ka BP indicates a substantial increase in moisture a...
The Holocene, 2020
This paper presents continuous, high resolution fossil pollen and microcharcoal records from Bo Langvlei, a lake in the Wilderness Embayment on South Africa’s southern Cape coast. Spanning the past ~1300 years and encompassing the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA; c. AD 950–1250) and the Little Ice Age (LIA; c. AD 1300–1850), these records provide a rare southern African perspective on past temperature, moisture and vegetation change during these much debated periods of the recent geological past. Considered together with other records from the Wilderness Embayment, we conclude that conditions in the region during the MCA chronozone were – in the context of the last 1300 years – likely relatively dry (reduced levels of Afrotemperate forest pollen) and perhaps slightly cooler (increased percentages of Stoebe-type pollen) than present. The most significant phase of forest expansion, and more humid conditions, occurred during the transition between the MCA and the most prominent cooling p...