Figure 2
Map of sub-Saharan Africa showing dominant farming systems based on data from Dixon et al. (2001) and updated by Garrity et al. (2012). Shapefiles published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Auricht and Dixon, 2015).
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As the continent with the deepest record of human history, the relationship between landscape formation and human subsistence practices is inseparable. The activities that constitute 'farming' are open for some matter of discussion, but essentially speak to the co-evolution of human, plant and animal reproductive systems along a continuum of interd...
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Context 1
... with the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) have identified five primary farming systems in Africa: Highland Perennial (HP), Maize Mixed (MM), Cereal Root Crop (CRC), AgroPastoral (AP) and Highland Mixed (HM), which is based on the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations land use scheme (Figure 2; Dixon et al., 2001;Garrity et al., 2012). Their analyses identify HP systems as primarily residing in eastern Africa and are largely based on cash and staple crops (especially maize and coffee) in densely populated upland settings. ...
Citations
... Outros investigadores acreditam que foi a migração dos grupos de agricultores e criadores de gado Bantu que introduziu a prática e espécies domésticas na África Austral (Wright, 2023 Germer, 1985). No entanto, a expansão da agriculta e bovinos para a África Austral é em geral atribuída à migração dos Bantu (Smith, 2013;Fehn et al., 2022). ...
Ostracods of the species Cyprideis remanei are microfossils widely used as indicators of paleoenvironmental and climatic changes due to their abundance in fossil records and habitat diversity. This study analysed the morphological variation of adult ostracod valves along the Inhambane coast, specifically in Lake Nyalonzwele, to understand the environmental changes that occurred during the Middle and Late Holocene using geometric morphometrics analysis and advanced statistical techniques.
A total of 8 samples were analysed, corresponding to a period dated between 7,100 - 1,800 BP, with 327 specimens analysed morphometrically. The morphology of the left valve was examined using images captured with a binocular microscope, followed by the extraction of data based on 2D anatomical landmark coordinates.
To analyse and interpret the morphological data, Geomorph was used, an “R” software package that allows all the procedures for geometric morphometric analysis to be carried out in a statistical computing environment. For shape analysis, this package uses the coordinate configurations of anatomical landmarks to record the relative positions of morphological points. Generalised Procrustes Analysis (GPA) were applied to standardise the configurations of the specimens, ensuring they shared the same coordinate system, location (Translation), size (resized) and orientation (rotation). Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was then employed to reduce dimensionality and study geometry variations of ostracods.
The results showed that males and females occupy distinct morphological spaces, with females exhibiting significant changes in valve shape and size over time. These changes are associated with climatic oscillations and variations in lake salinity, acting as environmental stresses that influenced the expansion and dietary adaptations of hunter-gatherer and farming communities. Furthermore, these environmental conditions facilitated interactions between different groups in southern Mozambique during the Middle and Late Holocene. These results highlight the importance of ostracods as robust tools for paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic reconstructions.
Keywords: Ostracods, Paleoenvironments, Holocene, Geometric Morphometrics.
... Archaeological studies have increasingly demonstrated that past land-use practices play a continual role in ecosystem function and biodiversity in the present (e.g., Wright, 2022;Pavlik et al., 2021;McMichael et al., 2023). However, human activities vary, as do their effects on environments. ...
The environmental impacts of human societies are generally assumed to correlate with factors such as population size, whether they are industrialized, and the intensity of their landscape modifications (e.g., agriculture, urban development). As a result, small-scale communities with subsistence economies are often not the focus of long-term studies of environmental impact. However, comparing human-environment dynamics and their lasting ecological legacies across societies of different scales and forms of organization and production is important for understanding landscape change at regional to global scales. On Madagascar, ecological and cultural diversity, coupled with climatic variability, provide an important case study to examine the role of smaller-scale socioeconomic practices (e.g., fishing, foraging, and herding) on long-term ecological stability. Here, we use multi-spectral satellite imagery to compare long-term ecological impacts of different human livelihood strategies in SW Madagascar. Our results indicate that the nature of human-environmental dynamics between different socioeconomic communities are similar. Although some activities leave more subtle traces than others, geophysics highlight similar signatures across a landscape inhabited by communities practicing a range of subsistence strategies. Our results further demonstrate how Indigenous land stewardship is integrated into the very fabric of ecological systems in SW Madagascar with implications for conservation and sustainability.
... These long legacies of human innovation, migration, and information sharing have resulted in a variety of landscape management systems that can be examined in a range of environmental settings. Today, this is evidenced by the myriad subsistence practices that are documented across the continent (Garrity et al., 2012), but the roots of these systems extend deep into prehistory and have significantly impacted the formation of present-day ecological systems (Stephens, 2019;Ellis, 2021;Wright, 2022). ...
Landscapes are formed by long-term interactions between the underlying geology and climatic, edaphic and biotic factors, including human activity. The Kasitu Valley in the Mzimba District of northern Malawi includes the Kasitu River and its adjacent floodplains and uplands, and it has been a location of sustained human occupation since at least 16 thousand years ago (ka) based on archaeological excavations from rockshelters. We trace the changing ecology and geomorphology of the region through soil stable isotopes (δ ¹³ C, δ ¹⁵ N), microcharcoal and fossil pollen analysed from alluvial terraces dated by Optically Stimulated Luminescence, and wetland auger cores and archaeological sites dated by radiocarbon. Our results suggest that the region was primarily covered in mosaic forest at ca. 22.5 ka. Middle and Late Holocene samples (6.0–0.5 ka) show an increasingly open, herbaceous landscape over time with an inflection toward more abundant C4 vegetation after 2 ka. Significant upland erosion and terrace formation is also evidenced since 2 ka alongside high concentrations of microcharcoal, suggesting more intensive use of fire. Faecal biomarkers simultaneously indicate higher numbers of humans living adjacent to the archaeological site of Hora 1, which may be indicative of an overall population increase associated with the arrival of Iron Age agropastoralists. More recently, the introduction of exogenous commercial taxa such as Pinus sp. are correlated with regional afforestation in our proxy record. These results show increasing stepwise human impacts on the local environment, with deforestation and maintenance of open landscapes correlated with the regional introduction and intensification of agriculture during the Late Holocene.
