Holocene Palaeoenvironmental Changes in Southeastern Mozambique: The Case of the Inhambane Bay

Summary

Geoarchaeological surveys were conducted in 2016 and 2017 to better understand the environmental history and landscape evolution of the Inhambane coastal area, Southeastern Mozambique, aiming to know the environmental context of human occupation of the Tofo, Praia da Rocha and Chibuene archaeological sites. To reach this aim, 4 cores were collected in a mangrove area of the Inhambane estuary, an area both influenced by sea-level and climate changes. All the boreholes were georeferenced and thestudy area was overflown with a drone to collect photogrammetric data. Core samples were used for geochemical, texture and diatom analysis. Diatoms will be used as the main palaeontological proxy, because they are unicellular algae with a short-live cycle and largely sensible to environmental variables such as salinity, sediment texture and duration of the tidal inundation. Preliminary data on the cores sedimentological description (encompassing the last 4700 years), geochemical and diatom results are presented. These results are mainly showing changes due to the mangrove lateral progradation, which is probably responsible by an environment alternation between more and less hydrodynamic environments.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21285