Sediments, soils, and the expansion of farmers into a forager's world: A geoarchaeological study of the mid-to-late Holocene in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe

In fact, in the study area landscape instability and variable environmental conditions were commonplace during the past three millennia. Drought between ca. 2.8 and 2.6 ka may have lessened the risk of disease vectors for the earliest agropastoralists that arrived during more mesic conditions between 1.9 and 1.65 ka. At this time basins began to accumulate fill and soil development suggests landscape stability even in headland basins. Changes in soil carbon isotope values imply relatively hot/dry conditions prevailed around 0.73 ka and 0.41 ka and cool/wet conditions around 0.53 ka, but much information has been lost due to the numerous erosional events that wiped away swaths of sediments during intervening droughts. The landscape in Hwange National Park continues to change rapidly as reflected by several meters of river downcutting in response to recent man-made disturbance and/or drought. This downcutting both reveals and endangers the few remaining archaeological sites that are critical to understanding the first food producers in the region.