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7 - Dating the southern African landscape

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2016

By
Stephan Woodborne
Edited by
Jasper Knight  and
Stefan W. Grab
Jasper Knight
Affiliation:
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Stefan W. Grab
Affiliation:
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
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Summary

Abstract

The southern African landscape has been subject to denudation, sediment mobilisation, and deposition over the last 5 Ma. Dating the geological, geomorphological and archaeological evidence of these processes has been achieved through the application of different dating techniques (cosmogenic, luminescence, radiocarbon, electron spin resonance and uranium series disequilibrium). Dating evidence can address issues such as tectonic versus isostatic uplift, chemical versus physical weathering, water processes in the landscape, the age of hominid remains, and the archaeological trajectory of humans from early modernity to the present. Although dating methods are improving, many problems lie in user errors linked to inadequate understanding of the dating context and limitations of the dating methods. Confidence in chronologies is enhanced through reproducibility, stratigraphic consistency and cross-referencing between different techniques.

Type
Chapter
Information
Quaternary Environmental Change in Southern Africa
Physical and Human Dimensions
 , pp. 99 - 120
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2016

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