Book contents
- Quaternary Environmental Change in Southern AfricaPhysical and Human Dimensions
- Quaternary Environmental Change in Southern Africa
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- 1 The context of Quaternary environmental change in southern Africa
- 2 A brief geological history of southern Africa
- 3 A continental-scale perspective on landscape evolution in southern Africa during the Cenozoic
- 4 Hominin origins and evolution during the Neogene
- 5 Hominin evolution in Africa during the Quaternary
- 6 Quaternary environmental change on the southern African coastal plain
- 7 Dating the southern African landscape
- 8 Glacial and periglacial geomorphology
- 9 Colluvial deposits and slope instability
- 10 Desert dune environments
- 11 Changes in fluvial systems during the Quaternary
- 12 Wetlands in southern Africa
- 13 Sandy coasts
- 14 Environmental change during the Pleistocene and Holocene: Estuaries and lagoons of southern Africa
- 15 Soils and duricrusts
- 16 Karstic systems
- 17 Terrestrial ecosystem changes in the late Quaternary
- 18 Faunal evidence for mid- and late Quaternary environmental change in southern Africa
- 19 Pollen, charcoal and plant macrofossil evidence of Neogene and Quaternary environments in southern Africa
- 20 Minerogenic microfossil records of Quaternary environmental change in southern Africa
- 21 Development of the archaeological record in southern Africa during the Earlier Stone Age
- 22 Development of the archaeological record during the Middle Stone Age of South Africa
- 23 Later Stone Age hunter-gatherers and herders
- 24 Southernmost Africans, archaeology and the environment during the Holocene
- 25 Landscape–climate–human relations in the Quaternary of southern Africa
- Index
- References
18 - Faunal evidence for mid- and late Quaternary environmental change in southern Africa
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2016
- Quaternary Environmental Change in Southern AfricaPhysical and Human Dimensions
- Quaternary Environmental Change in Southern Africa
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- 1 The context of Quaternary environmental change in southern Africa
- 2 A brief geological history of southern Africa
- 3 A continental-scale perspective on landscape evolution in southern Africa during the Cenozoic
- 4 Hominin origins and evolution during the Neogene
- 5 Hominin evolution in Africa during the Quaternary
- 6 Quaternary environmental change on the southern African coastal plain
- 7 Dating the southern African landscape
- 8 Glacial and periglacial geomorphology
- 9 Colluvial deposits and slope instability
- 10 Desert dune environments
- 11 Changes in fluvial systems during the Quaternary
- 12 Wetlands in southern Africa
- 13 Sandy coasts
- 14 Environmental change during the Pleistocene and Holocene: Estuaries and lagoons of southern Africa
- 15 Soils and duricrusts
- 16 Karstic systems
- 17 Terrestrial ecosystem changes in the late Quaternary
- 18 Faunal evidence for mid- and late Quaternary environmental change in southern Africa
- 19 Pollen, charcoal and plant macrofossil evidence of Neogene and Quaternary environments in southern Africa
- 20 Minerogenic microfossil records of Quaternary environmental change in southern Africa
- 21 Development of the archaeological record in southern Africa during the Earlier Stone Age
- 22 Development of the archaeological record during the Middle Stone Age of South Africa
- 23 Later Stone Age hunter-gatherers and herders
- 24 Southernmost Africans, archaeology and the environment during the Holocene
- 25 Landscape–climate–human relations in the Quaternary of southern Africa
- Index
- References
Summary
Southern Africa is differentiated from other centres of aridity in Africa by the presence of an extended island of elevated, essentially treeless habitat in the central interior, known as the Highveld and the Karoo. This area coincides botanically with the Nama-Karoo and the Grassland Biomes. The large geographic extent of this habitat is unique to southern Africa, since it has no exact equivalent in modern-day east or north Africa. This uniqueness is reflected in the large herbivores of the central interior, the grazers and mixed feeders adapted to permanently available open habitat, which defines the endemic faunal character of the subregion. This contribution presents some of the faunal evidence for the appearance of permanently open habitat in central southern Africa, a process that formed part of a longer-term trend of faunal adaptation to aridification and global cooling that was initiated within the last 1 Ma, in a time known as the Cornelian Land Mammal Age (LMA). A secondary and overlapping theme deals with the appearance of lakes and wetlands on a subregional scale during the Florisian LMA, which lasted from c. 0.6 Ma to the end of the Pleistocene/early Holocene. The end of the Florisian LMA coincided with the regional extinction of wetland faunas in the interior and with the extinction of specialised grazing ungulates over the entire subregion, leading into the semi-arid conditions seen in the larger part of modern-day southern Africa.
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- Quaternary Environmental Change in Southern AfricaPhysical and Human Dimensions, pp. 284 - 305Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2016
References
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