What is it about?
East Africa and southern Africa have different records of climate, and the records vary in quality. This research examines a site between the two regions to illuminate the prehistoric climate. At this site, Ishiba Ngandu, there is little evidence of the extreme, long-term droughts except perhaps for about 1000 years around 20,000 years ago. It appears that the climate here was wet (as in Botswana) prior that time, but afterwards was generally comparable to the climate of East Africa (as in Tanzania and Malawi).
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Why is it important?
This site is located in an area that's between two previously-studied regions, so its record helps understand the extent of two prehistoric climate patterns.
Perspectives
This paper honors Dan Livingstone and parallels his 1971 paper on the pollen record of this site (Limnology & Oceanography 16:349). Dan's likely ancestor, the famous explorer David Livingstone, was the first European to visit the lake, in 1867. This 1867 visit would have dire consequences -- while crossing the lake, David Livingstone's dog Chitane was lost, evidently taken by crocodiles. Even worse, around this time porters ran off with the one box of medicines, a loss that likely contributed to Livingstone's death -- just 190 km to the southwest -- in 1873.
Kurt Haberyan
Northwest Missouri State University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A >22,000 yr diatom record from the plateau of Zambia, Quaternary Research, July 2017, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/qua.2017.31.
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