Bringing together archaeological, paleoenvironmental, paleontological and genetic data, this book makes a first attempt to reconstruct African population histories from our species' evolution to the Holocene. Africa during Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 6 to 2 (~190-12,000 years ago) witnessed the biological development and behavioral florescence of our species. Modern human population dynamics, which involved multiple population expansions, dispersals, contractions and extinctions, played a central role in our species' evolutionary trajectory. So far, the demographic processes - modern human population sizes, distributions and movements - that occurred within Africa during this critical period have been consistently under-addressed.

The authors of this volume aim at: (1) examining the impact of this period of extreme climatic changes on human group sizes, movements and distributions throughout Africa; (2) investigating the macro- and micro-evolutionary processes underpinning our species' anatomical and behavioral evolution; and (3) evaluating the state of knowledge of prehistoric population dynamics in Africa so that the continent can benefit from, and eventually contribute to, the increasingly sophisticated theoretical and methodological paleodemographic frameworks developed elsewhere.

Autorentext
Dr. Sacha C. Jones is a postdoctoral research associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge. She specializes in the Palaeolithic period, in particular that of North Africa and India.
Dr. Brian A. Stewart is a paleolithic archaeologist in the Department of Anthropology and the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His research focuses on the archaeology of prehistoric hunter-gatherers in Africa, especially southern Africa.

Inhalt

Chapter 1 Africa from MIS 6-2: The Florescence of Modern Humans.- Part I Coasts.- Chapter 2 Mid to Late Quaternary Landscape and Environmental Dynamics in the Middle Stone Age of Southern South Africa.- 3 Chapter Technological Change and the Importance of Variability: the Western Cape of South Africa from MIS 5-2.- Chapter 4 Cultural Change, Demography, and the Archaeology of the Last 100 kyr in Southern Africa.- Chapter 5 Patterns of Hominin Occupation and Cultural Diversity Across the Gebel Akhdar of Northern Libya over the Last ~200 kyr.- Part II Deserts.- Chapter 6 Climate Change and Modern Human Occupation of the Sahara from MIS 6-2.- Chapter 7 Climate, Environment and Population Dynamics in Pleistocene Sahara.- Chapter 8 Technological Systems, Population Dynamics and Historical Process in the MSA of Northern Africa.- Chapter 9 Late Quaternary Environmental Change and Human Occupation of the Southern African Interior.- Chapter 10 The Kalahari During MIS 6-2 (190-12 ka): Archaeology, Paleoenvironment and Population Dynamics.- Chapter 11 Paleoenvironments, Sea Levels and Land Use in Namaqualand, South Africa, During MIS 6-2.- Part III Grasslands, Woodlands and Rainforests.- Chapter 12 Human Evolution in Late Quaternary Eastern Africa.- Chapter 13 Environmental Change, Ungulate Biogeography, and their Implications for Early Human Dispersals in Equatorial East Africa.- Chapter 14 Follow the Senqu: Maloti-Drakensberg Paleoenvironments and Implications for Early Human Dispersals into Mountain Systems.- Chapter 15 Across Rainforests and Woodlands: A Systematic Re-appraisal of the Lupemban Middle Stone Age in Central Africa.- Chapter 16 The Later Pleistocene in the Northeastern Central African Rainforest.- Part IV Broader Perspectives.- Chapter 17 The Late Quaternary Hominins of Africa: The Skeletal Evidence from MIS 6-2.- Chapter 18 A Genetic Perspective on African Prehistory.- Chapter 19 Africa From MIS 6-2: Where Do We Go From Here?.