Paleoenvironmental reconstructions for the Horn of Africa: Interdisciplinary perspectives on strategy and significance

TY - CHAP

T1 - Paleoenvironmental reconstructions for the Horn of Africa: Interdisciplinary perspectives on strategy and significance

AU - Hildebrand, Elisabeth A.

AU - Brandt, Steven A.

AU - Friis, Ib

AU - Demissew, Sebsebe

PY - 2019/10/28

Y1 - 2019/10/28

N2 - The Horn of Africa is a biodiversity hot spot, and likely comprised refugia in the distant and recent past. For millennia, rainfall capture in the Horn has fueled the development of complex economies and civilizations, from homegrown highland polities to others as distant as the Indian Ocean coast and the Nile delta. Climates and environments of the Horn are therefore of immense significance to the human past, present, and future. Despite this, our understanding of the past changes in highland climates and environments, and the circulation patterns that would have affected them, is only in a preliminary stage. This makes it difficult for archaeologists to rigorously assess the relations between past environments and human demography, technology, and behavior. In this chapter, we seek to combine insights from archaeology, ethnobotany, botany, ecology and paleoenvironmental sciences to raise awareness of the complex factors shaping climate, environment, and ultimately human behavior within and beyond the Horn. We hope these perspectives lay a foundation for productive future interdisciplinary collaboration, eventually leading to the construction and comparison of many local paleoenvironmental sequences, the ability to analyze changes operating at different chronological and geographical scales, and a better understanding of their causes and consequences.

AB - The Horn of Africa is a biodiversity hot spot, and likely comprised refugia in the distant and recent past. For millennia, rainfall capture in the Horn has fueled the development of complex economies and civilizations, from homegrown highland polities to others as distant as the Indian Ocean coast and the Nile delta. Climates and environments of the Horn are therefore of immense significance to the human past, present, and future. Despite this, our understanding of the past changes in highland climates and environments, and the circulation patterns that would have affected them, is only in a preliminary stage. This makes it difficult for archaeologists to rigorously assess the relations between past environments and human demography, technology, and behavior. In this chapter, we seek to combine insights from archaeology, ethnobotany, botany, ecology and paleoenvironmental sciences to raise awareness of the complex factors shaping climate, environment, and ultimately human behavior within and beyond the Horn. We hope these perspectives lay a foundation for productive future interdisciplinary collaboration, eventually leading to the construction and comparison of many local paleoenvironmental sequences, the ability to analyze changes operating at different chronological and geographical scales, and a better understanding of their causes and consequences.

KW - Faculty of Science

KW - Horn of Africa

KW - Ethiopia

KW - Palaeoenvironment

KW - potential vegetation

KW - Afromontane habitats

KW - Vegetation history

M3 - Book chapter

SN - 978-3-7749-4221-9

T3 - Frankfurter Archäologische Schriften/Frankfurt Archaeological Studies

SP - 187

EP - 210

BT - Trees, Grasses and Crops. People and Plants in Sub-Saharan Africa and Beyond

A2 - Eichhorn, Barbara

A2 - Höhn, Alexa

PB - Verlag Dr. Rudolf Habelt, Bonn, Germany

CY - Bonn

ER -