[...]... creation of a host of technological innovations; (3) acceptance and development of a variety of food producing modes; (4) evolution and transformation of social and political organizational arrangements; and (5) instigation of certain ideological beliefs and ritual practices The cultural changes resulted from the impact of the climatic events on the quality, amount, distribution, interannual variability and. .. Radiocarbon chronology of the later prehistory of the Sahel Zone of Burkina Faso based on calibrated dates Cultural material from different Final Stone Age dune sites in the Sahel Zone of Burkina Faso Map of the Chad Basin of Northeast Nigeria with archaeological sites Radiocarbon chronology of the Holocene prehistory of Northeast Nigeria Distribution of firki mounds and of sites of the Gajiganna Culture,... bp of the studied cores (D1 and O4) Synchronous pollen events in cores Orgoba 4, Bale Mountains and Dega Sala 1, Arsi Mountains Climatic phases inferred from the sunchronous pollen zones of cores Orgoba 4, Bale Mountains and Dega Sala 1, Arsi Mountains Summary of late Holocene environmental changes in West and West Central Africa Some of the uses of the oil palm tree Presence/absence of a variety of. .. Wendorf and Schild, 1994) Following the abrupt and severe spell of aridity ca 8.6 kyr bp (7.6 kyr cal BC), re-tooling of lithic artifacts and the establishment of slab-lined huts suggests the emergence of new organizational and technological developments Farther to the west in the Adrar Acacus, the management of wild animals dates to ca 9 kyr bp (10 kyr cal BP; Cremaschi and di Lernia, 1996; di Lernia and. .. Sahara and north Sahel at the end of the Neolithic and at the beginning of history, according to radiocarbon determinations (494 dates) Palaeoenvironments and human occupation during the Holocene in the southwest Sahara Location of the area studied in Chapter 5 The stratigraphic sequence of Uan Afuda The stratigraphic sequence of the site MT21 in the Messak Sattafet U/Th dates of the travertine and anthropogenic... triggers of human responses (2) The importance of regional variability in response to global climatic phenomena as a result of historical antecedents and local ecological settings The response of plants, animals, and water resources to climatic events are particularly significant as a stimulus to human actions (3) The indeterminacy of human responses and the importance of environmental perception and decision... options and opportunities available to communities at times of repeated harsh weather conditions These responses may include: population dispersal, modifications of social organization, technological or economic innovations, and initiation of ritual, religious, or ideological practices (4) The role of population movements and dispersal, demographic flux, information networks, exchanges of food and goods and, ... transformations in terms of trans-regional and long-distance interactions Within the scope of contemporary archaeology, as represented by several contributions in this volume from current archaeological projects in Africa, the interactions between culture and the environment are not a matter of polemical debate, but of continued research to improve our understanding of the nature of that relationship In... with great details of events over the last 100,000 years, perception of environmental events was extremely limited and patchy The scale of human perception was incapable of construing climatic history in terms of events that differed in scale from variations over intervals of a few millennia, a few hundreds of years or a few decades, and those less than two decades (for time-scale and environmental... (1994) In modeling the relationship between climate and people, the dynamics of the landscape are of the utmost significance (see, for example, McGlade, 1995) In North Africa, the impact of cold, reduction in rainfall and seasonal variability on aeolian activity, surface water in lakes, runoff, waterflow in wadis, the density and distribution of trees and grasses were compounded by an increase in interannual . (phase I) and agropastoral (phase II) stages Pottery of phases I and II of the Gajiganna Culture Economic and cultural appearance of the Gajiganna Culture Gajiganna: Percentage values of plant. Mountains and Dega Sala 1, Arsi Mountains Summary of late Holocene environmental changes in West and West Central Africa Some of the uses of the oil palm tree Presence/absence of a variety of grass. set of probable responses, that they accepted, assimilated and modified innovations (local or borrowed) within the context of their field of knowledge and action, governed by norms, mores, and