Lessons from a lakebed: unpicking hydrological change and early human landscape use in the Makgadikgadi basin, Botswana

Abstract

The intersection of archaeological material with the landscape is investigated using OSL dating of landforms associated with Middle Stone Age (MSA) archaeology in the Makgadikgadi basin, Botswana. In this study, MSA archaeological sites on the Makgadikgadi pan floor date to two dry periods in the basin during the late Quaternary. Site formation at one site occurred during dry, or seasonally dry conditions that followed a period of high lake levels between 128 ± 18 ka and 81 ± 6 ka. The site was buried by sediments from a subsequent period of high lake levels dating to between 72 ± 5 ka and 57 ± 8 ka. At other investigated sites, the archaeological material was most likely deposited during a second dry period sometime after this. Overlying dunes are much younger (late Holocene) than the late Pleistocene lakebed sediments associated with the archaeological sites. Rapid burial of the archaeological sites by clayey sands has resulted in limited disturbance and weathering of archaeological material which appears to have only been exposed very recently, perhaps in the last 350 years when conditions have been particularly dry and susceptible to deflation. The spatial patterning of both sediment accumulation and deflation strongly influences archaeological visibility both within and around the Makgadikgadi basin.