Construction of Pleistocene Geochronologies in Central Africa: Luminescence Dating in Northern Malawi

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances and Debates in the Pleistocene Archaeology of Africa" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Advances in understanding the Pleistocene archaeology of Africa depend on well-dated models of human behavioral change. Portions of southern Africa with limestone caves and eastern Africa with volcanic tephra have datable materials (uranium and argon, respectively) beyond the limit of the radiocarbon clock (50ka). However, central Africa does not have such deposits and requires the application of alternative dating techniques. Extensive soil formation and cycles of erosion and deposition add further challenges within this context. This paper summarizes a decade of geoarchaeological research in northern Malawi, where a geochronology is built on Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating of open-air archaeological sites on alluvial fans. Challenges in OSL dating rifting systems with heterogeneous geologies and dynamic deposition processes will be discussed. However, once considered, these data have proven invaluable in understanding human-induced landscape change and adaptive niche construction within the Pleistocene of the southern portion of the African Rift Valley.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Recent Advances and Debates in the Pleistocene Archaeology of Africa

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23114