Arid
DOI10.1016/j.quaint.2010.11.001
Interpreting geoproxies of late Quaternary climate change in African drylands: Implications for understanding environmental change and early human behaviour
Thomas, David S. G.1,2; Burrough, Sallie L.1
通讯作者Thomas, David S. G.
来源期刊QUATERNARY INTERNATIONAL
ISSN1040-6182
出版年2012
卷号253页码:5-17
英文摘要

Climate and environmental change in the Late Quaternary are widely regarded as key drivers of early human development and dispersal. In Africa, robust records of change are required to assess the nature of potential impacts. Today’s late Quaternary palaeoenvironmental/palaeoclimate reconstructions from the interior southern African basin (Kalahari) are more spatially detailed, have a stronger chronometric underpinning, and span a longer time range, than those of 10-20 years ago, but are no less controversial. Reconstructions for the last similar to 150 ka are usually interpreted in terms of changes in hydrological balance from conditions more humid or more arid than today, and expressed in climatological terms as the changing latitudinal interplay between monsoon easterlies and tropical and mid-latitude westerlies. With more data than ever before, why then is the record not yet delivering a more coherent picture of regional climate change? This paper deliberately addresses current challenges and controversies, including issues often ignored or neglected, with the view that it is essential to do so if more robust interpretations of the past are to be generated in the future.


Sources of palaeo-data from the interior are predominantly ’geoproxies’: reconstructions not based on highly resolved organic or isotope records, but on interpretation of spatially extensive geomorphological proxies of past environments. Despite being increasingly datable using OSL, their inclusion in syntheses has proved complex not least when interpretations appear to conflict with records from other sources. Consequently, they are sometimes removed from regional syntheses of climate change.


These omissions are often replaced by spatially-exaggerated interpretations of ’higher quality’ local records allowing more spatially-coherent timeslice interpretations to be presented. Yet this is counter-intuitive to the spatial complexity of conditions present in the palaeoenvironmental proxies, or in climatic and environmental systems today. In addition, the quest to link regional records to ’master records’ from ice and ocean cores can ’force’ interpretation within a temporal scale that may be inappropriate for their analysis, under-playing the reality of complexity within the environmental system.


There are not necessarily ’good’ or bad’ records of terrestrial palaeoenvironments in interior southern Africa. Rather, there are records that contain different suites of information about past land surface, hydrological and climate conditions preserved at temporal scales which can sometimes be incomparable. Consideration of these factors may resolve apparent conflicts between datasets, resulting in a better understanding of past environmental dynamics, and revealing the nature of environmental variability, which may be a key facet to which human development has responded. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.


类型Article
语种英语
国家England ; South Africa
收录类别SCI-E ; SSCI
WOS记录号WOS:000301634400003
WOS关键词CENTRAL SOUTHERN AFRICA ; SOUTHWEST KALAHARI DESERT ; LINEAR DUNE ACCUMULATION ; MODERN HUMAN ORIGINS ; MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE ; DUNEFIELD ACTIVITY ; HUMAN-EVOLUTION ; PLEISTOCENE ; VARIABILITY ; LAKE
WOS类目Geography, Physical ; Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
WOS研究方向Physical Geography ; Geology
来源机构University of Oxford
资源类型期刊论文
条目标识符http://119.78.100.177/qdio/handle/2XILL650/174679
作者单位1.Univ Oxford, Sch Geog & Environm, Oxford OX1 3QY, England;
2.Univ Cape Town, Dept Environm & Geog Sci, ZA-7701 Rondebosch, South Africa
推荐引用方式
GB/T 7714
Thomas, David S. G.,Burrough, Sallie L.. Interpreting geoproxies of late Quaternary climate change in African drylands: Implications for understanding environmental change and early human behaviour[J]. University of Oxford,2012,253:5-17.
APA Thomas, David S. G.,&Burrough, Sallie L..(2012).Interpreting geoproxies of late Quaternary climate change in African drylands: Implications for understanding environmental change and early human behaviour.QUATERNARY INTERNATIONAL,253,5-17.
MLA Thomas, David S. G.,et al."Interpreting geoproxies of late Quaternary climate change in African drylands: Implications for understanding environmental change and early human behaviour".QUATERNARY INTERNATIONAL 253(2012):5-17.
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