A 23,000 yr pollen record from Lake Rukwa (8°S, SW Tanzania): New data on vegetation dynamics and climate in Central Eastern Africa

Past dynamics of the Australian monsoon: precession, phase and links to the global monsoon concept

“…Pokras and Mix, 1987;Molfino and McIntyre, 1990;Beaufort et al, 1997;Schneider et al, 1997;Villanueva et al, 1998;Reichart et al, 1998). All of these have the same phase (beginning of August or February depending on the sign of the climate phenomenon), which is also observed in the Chinese speleothems and our Banda Sea records.…”

“…This shift is synchronous with an increase in aridity seen in the Sahel and Sahara in the mid Holocene in palaeo-records of the African monsoon from the western Atlantic Ocean (deMenocal et al, 2000). This mid Holocene change in the North African monsoon regime has been described in many studies (Servant and Servant-Vildary, 1980;Gasse and Van campo, 1994;Petit-Maire et al, 1997;Kropelin et al, 2008) and extends also to East Africa (see references in Gasse, 2000;Vincens et al, 2005). Mid-Holocene monsoon changes are also observed in the Arabian Sea area (Fleitmann et al, 2003;Fleitmann et al, 2007), the Tibetan Plateau (Gasse et al, 1991), and in Eastern Asia .…”

Stratigraphy and paleoenvironments of the early to middle Holocene Chipalamawamba Beds (Malawi Basin, Africa)

“…Records of planktonic diatoms support high or intermediate levels during much of the early Holocene, with short-lived regressions at 10.6 and 8.5-8.2 ka BP and a somewhat remarkable transgression 7.5-6.6 ka BP . Finally, it is puzzling that several proxies from Lake Malawi suggest low lake levels and aridity when the nearby Lake Rukwa experienced humid conditions from 12.1 to 5.5 ka BP (Haberyan, 1987;Vincens et al, 2005), with paleoshorelines during that interval at least temporarily reaching levels ∼ 200 m above the present day lake level (Delvaux et al, 1998). Also Lake Massoko, a volcanic crater lake in the Rungwe Highlands, experienced relatively wet conditions in this period (Barker et al, 2003).…”

“…Planktonic diatoms, however, hint to generally lower lake levels over the last 4 ka BP than in the early Holocene . Aridification would have started already from 5.5 ka BP in the Rukwa Basin (Vincens et al, 2005) and from ∼ 4.5 ka BP for Lake Massoko (Barker et al, 2003).…”

Excavations at Mlambalasi Rockshelter: a Terminal Pleistocene to Recent Iron Age Record in Southern Tanzania

“…Although free of ice sheets, glacial periods in Africa were marked by extremely arid conditions (Hamilton 1982). During the final stages of the Pleistocene, many African great lakes experienced significant water-level drops with related impacts on vegetation cover (Gasse 2000;Barker and Gasse 2003;Gasse et al 2008;Vincens et al 2005). Lake Victoria evaporated completely between c. 17,000-16,000 BP and again c. 15,000-14,000 BP, with a demonstrable Bpush-pull^effect on human and animal populations (Johnson et al 1996;Tryon et al 2015;Verheyen et al 2003).…”