Intensive El Niño and the Iron Age of South-eastern Africa.

  • Author: Thomas N. Huffman
  • Topic: 2000 to 10,000 BP,1000 to 2000 BP,500 to 1000 BP
  • Country: Malawi, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe
  • Related Congress: 13th Congress, Dakar

Burnt daga structures in Iron Age villages serve as proxies for severe drought on the plateau of southern Africa. The distribution of burnt daga remains in two other rainfall areas, KwaZulu-Natal and the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone over Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi, establishes a sequence of simultaneous burnings that parallels the severe droughts recorded for the interior plateau. These widespread correspondences suggest a common cause. Another correspondence with natural proxy data from South America indicates that intensive El Niño events most likely caused the droughts.

Keywords: Burnt daga; Cultural proxies for drought; El Niño; Iron Age of south-eastern Africa.


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