Paleo-landscapes and hydrology in the South African interior: implications for human history

Recent research reveals that the arid western interior of South Africa has experienced substantially more

humid conditions on several occasions during the last 70 000 years. These findings, likely regional in

scope, speak to changes to the resource base available to prehistoric hunter-gatherers. Together with

recent archaeological findings from this region, there has emerged a growing recognition that previously

archaeologically overlooked areas of South Africa’s arid interior need to be included in models of human

history. This presents new challenges for archaeologists and palaeoclimatologists, particularly given the

prevalence of surficial, rather than stratified, archaeological evidence throughout much of this region.