Data from: Africa-wide diversification of livelihoods strategies: Isotopic insights into Holocene human adaptations to climate change
Data files
May 07, 2025 version files 961.32 KB
-
0_AppendixA.csv
959.52 KB
-
README.md
1.80 KB
Abstract
As livelihoods face threats from climate change globally, it is critical to clarify human-environment relationships, and the factors influencing risk, adaptation, and resilience. Contemporary African communities have contributed least to climate change, yet increasingly bear the greatest burden of its impacts. Africa contains the longest record of human-climate coevolution; however, Holocene livelihoods have not been comparatively characterised at continental scale. By combining archaeological context with isotopic niches to describe Holocene livelihoods (c. 11,000 BP - present) and their evolution during major climatic change (African Humid Period: c. 14,700-5500 BP), we demonstrate the socio-ecological development of livelihoods and their contributions to human resilience – particularly through livelihood diversification. By empirically comparing food-producing (pastoralism, cultivation) and food-gathering strategies (hunting-gathering, fishing), we contribute continental-scale context for the complex interactions underpinning the expansion of food production, and illustrate the importance of livelihood diversification under intensifying environmental change with implications for food security and human well-being.
This dataset includes metadata associated with the clustering of isotopic information and summarisation of Holocene human livelihoods in Continental Africa. Publications and associated information were collated into an Excel sheet.
Description of the data and file structure
Archaeological site names and country are listed in columns A-B. The assigned livelihood colour, determined via hierarchical clustering is listed in column C. Associated livelihood information gathered from publications is indicated in columns D-I: column D includes the publication reference from which summarised livelihood information was gathered; columns E-H reflect the applied categorisation scheme based on livelihoods information; column I summarises the information collected from the publication.
The applied categorisation scheme describes the different livelihoods associated with each colour (please see the associated publication in OneEarth for a detailed description):
- Red (primary association): Highly variable reliance on agro-pastoralism and hunting-gathering
- Blue (primary association): C4 centred pastoralism and agro-pastoralism
- Yellow (primary association): diversified hunting-gathering associated with aquatic protein
- Purple, Green (primary association): cultivation-centred livelihoods with 15N-enriched animal proteins
- Orange (primary association): diversified hunting-gathering tending towards mixed C4/C3 diets with limited reliance on 15N-enriched proteins
- Gray (primary reliance): C4-oriented mixed hunting-herding-fishing strategies
AquaticStatus with NA values mean there is no aquatic status (i.e. categorically equal to 0).
The data was analysed in R and collected from publications associated with each isotopic record. Contextual information was summarised and then developed into a harmonised categorisation scheme, associated with isotope cluster type (isootpic niche).