THE TURKANA BASIN DURING THE LATE QUATERNARY: DYNAMIC NATURAL AND SOCIAL ENVIRONMENTS

Though there has been more than a century of paleontological and archaeological research in the Turkana Basin, histories of human occupation during Late Quaternary, specifically the African Humid Period (AHP; 15.5 - 5.5 kya) and beyond, have drawn less attention than older time periods. However, the dynamic environments of the Turkana Basin during this time provide important lenses through which we can understand how both ecosystems and human social practices may have shifted in response to climatological change in deeper time periods. During the AHP, orbitally-forced wet conditions in the basin resulted in high lake levels across the region and wooded environments within the basin itself. People living in the Turkana Basin at this time were fisher-foragers, exploiting local resources for food and tools, including making and using barbed bone points and ceramics. The AHP ended between 5.5-4 kya with an abrupt drop in lake level, a shift to a drier climate, and more grassy environments. Around this time, people living around Lake Turkana began herding in addition to fishing, hunting, and gathering, and engaged in new behavioral and cultural practices, such as new ceramic technologies, mortuary practices and building megalithic architecture. These changes point to in-migration of pastoralists living alongside existing communities. People were not only experiencing rapid environmental changes, but also lived in (and created) a dynamic social landscape.

In the last twenty years, renewed research on Late Quaternary sediments has revealed even more about the region’s environmental dynamics and how people coped with changes in hydrology, vegetation, and climate within a complex cultural landscape. Despite these advances, there is still more work to do in the Turkana Basin during this time period, such as improving local vs. basinal scale records of environmental change and mapping more Late Quaternary sediments. This presentation will review recent research in the basin, focusing on sediments and archaeological sites from the AHP to present, as well as point out future priorities for study.