Poster 1: Remote sensing, archaeology and palaeoenvironments in the Lake Manyara and Engaruka Basins, Tanzania.

Lake Manyara and Engaruka Basins are situated in the East African Rift Valley, in northern Tanzania. Lake Manyara Basin holds presently a shallow alkaline lake and the Engaruka Basin a small soda lake in the years of extensive rains. Both basins lie nowadays in a semi-arid environment, but have experienced extensive periods of increased humidity and high water level stands during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene, between ca. 12 000 – 6000 BP. High lake levels are evidenced by numerous palaeoshoreline formations, such as terrace formations and raised beaches, and spatial distribution of the archaeological sites. Palaeoenvironmental reconstructions presenting different lake level stages are suggested for both basins, based on the field studies carried out in 2003-2004 and 2009. A sample of palaeoshoreline formations have been recorded on field with a differential GPS, as well as from various forms of satellite imagery. Past environmental and climatic conditions had obviously a profound effect on the archaeological settlement-subsistence systems encountered in the area. Prehistoric livelihoods range from the reliance on hunting, fishing and gathering, to specialized pastoralism, and to irrigation farming.