Climate Change and Early Farming in Eastern Africa

As elsewhere in the world, archaeological records in eastern Africa show that long environmental variabilities shaped the emergence and development of farming economies. Marine sediments and isotopic data indicate alternating humid and arid phases that coincide with the reorganization of settlements, establishment of agricultural landscapes, and the generation of new subsistence practices during the later Holocene. Strengthened monsoons during the African Humid Period (13,050–3050 BCE) produced environments that enabled human mobility, likely experimentation with plants, and the dispersal of early herders through the Rift Valley and the Horn of Africa. Archaeological, archaeobotanical, isotopic, and other data from sites in the Rift Valley, Lake Victoria, and elsewhere indicate varied and gradual transitions from foraging to mixed farming, shaped by microenvironments, altitude, and intercommunity exchanges. Case studies of farming systems developed over the last 2,000 years demonstrate innovative forms of resilient landscape engineering and complex social management. We suggest that the equity and collective stewardship attested by this record offer valuable analogues for contemporary climate adaptation in the Anthropocene.