Quaternary Paleoenvironmental Changes in the Inhambane Bay (Southeastern Mozambique)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "African Archaeology throughout the Holocene" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Contrasting with other areas of the globe, there are few palaeoenvironmental studies in Africa and in particularly in Mozambique. However, the knowledge about Quaternary palaeoenvironmental changes and their forcers (e.g. climate and sea level changes) is essential to understand the environmental context of human occupation of the Inhambane area. Thus, to shed light on this subject, we collected 4 cores in a mangrove east of the city of Inhambane. All cores were sedimentologicaly described and samples were collected every 10 cm for geochemical and diatom analysis (unicellular algae with a short-live cycle and largely sensible to environmental variables such as salinity, sediment texture, duration of the tidal inundation and nutrients). The analyzed record encompasses the last 4700 years, period during which Praia da Rocha and Praia do Tofo archaeological sites were occupied. Preliminary results showed that, during this time span, the environmental changes of the studied area were mainly related to the bay lateral progradation, after the mean sea level stabilization. Moreover, diatoms (which were moderately preserved and presented high diversities per sample) point to the occurrence of wetter conditions at ca. 4500-4700, 2500-3000, 1000-1500 years cal. BP.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• African Archaeology throughout the Holocene   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24581