West Africa (49,293 – 28,578 BCE) Upper Pleistocene I — Foragers of River Valleys and Green Sahara Corridors

Geographic and Environmental Context

The Atlantic and inland belt from Senegal and Mauritania east through Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria (western and central), plus the forest–savanna margins of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, and Benin.

Anchors: Senegal–Gambia valleys, Inland Niger Bend and Inland Delta (Timbuktu, Mopti, Gao), Middle Niger–Kainji basin, Jos Plateau, Hausaland (Kano, Katsina, Zaria), Upper Volta basin, Gold Coast forest margins, Futa Jallon highlands, Dahomey Gap.

• LGM: Sahara hyper-arid; Lake Chad contracted.

• Sahel savanna narrowed to thin strip.

• Niger–Senegal–Volta valleys shrank but retained perennial water.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

• Cooler, drier; dust storms frequent.

• Seasonal streams ephemeral; only major rivers provided continuity.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Foragers along Senegal–Gambia and Niger hunted antelope, aurochs, and hippo.

• Fishing supplemented lean seasons.

• Futa Jallon uplands provided refugia with springs.

Technology & Material Culture

• Core–flake tools, quartz microliths.

• Shell and bone ornaments.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Senegal–Niger corridor carried movement between coastal and inland refugia.

• Green Sahara corridors limited but provided episodic exchange.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

• Ochre use and body ornamentation.

• Rock shelters in Mali/Senegal show symbolic traces.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

• Mobility between rivers and upland refugia buffered aridity.

Transition

By 28,578 BCE, West African foragers had stabilized around perennial river corridors.

Southern Africa (28,577 – 7,822 BCE): Late Pleistocene–Early Holocene — Rising Seas, Flood Pulses, and Shell-Midden Shores

Geographic & Environmental Context

During the long swing from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Early Holocene, Southern Africa cohered as a single water-anchored world.
Two complementary spheres organized lifeways:

• Temperate Southern Africa — the Cape littoral and fynbos, Namaqualand, Highveld grasslands, Drakensberg–Lesotho massif, Karoo, and the Maputo–Limpopo basins—where rising seas carved modern embayments and lagoons and river valleys remained fertile through climatic swings.

• Tropical West Southern Africa — the Okavango Delta, Zambezi–Chobe–Cuando/Linyanti–Caprivi wetlands, the Etosha Pan system and Owambo/Cuvelai drains, and the fog-nourished Skeleton Coast—an aquatic–savanna frontier driven by flood pulses and ITCZ rains.

Together these belts formed a ridge–river–coast continuum: shell-rich coves and estuaries at the Cape, grassland and spring corridors inland, and pulsing floodplains and pans to the north.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

• Bølling–Allerød (c. 14,700–12,900 BCE): Warmer, wetter conditions greened fynbos and Highveld grasslands; Okavango inundations broadened and Caprivi wetlands expanded; woodland belts thickened around Etosha and along the Owambo/Cuvelai drains.

• Younger Dryas (c. 12,900–11,700 BCE): A brief cool–dry pulse contracted marsh edges and inland water bodies; coastal reliance intensified along the Cape and Namaqualand; floodplain use narrowed to perennial channels and levees.

• Early Holocene (after 11,700 BCE): Climatic stabilization brought stronger summer rains in the north and reliable winter–spring moisture in the south; flood regimes regularized, lagoons matured, and grasslands recovered.

Subsistence & Settlement

A continent-spanning broad-spectrum portfolio matured, balancing semi-sedentary anchoring with seasonal mobility:

• Coasts (Temperate south): Strandloper adaptations flourished—large shell middens formed along the Cape and Namaqualand, with fish, mussels, limpets, seals, and seabirds as staples. Semi-sedentary cove camps persisted near rich shorelines and estuaries; inland rounds targeted antelope and dug geophytes in fynbos and grasslands.

• Floodplains & pans (Tropical west): Semi-recurrent levee camps followed fish runs (catfish/tilapia), flood-recession grazing of antelope, and riparian fruits. The Caprivi supported large wet-season encampments on high levees; Etosha margin hunts focused on springbok, zebra, oryx near permanent water; the Skeleton Coast remained a short-visit zone for carrion and shellfish.

Across both spheres, settlement knit together resource-rich nodes—coves, levees, springs, and rock shelters—reoccupied across generations.

Technology & Material Culture

Toolkits were light, durable, and tuned to water:

• Microlithic bladelets and backed segments for composite arrows and spears.

• Fish gorges, bone harpoons, woven basket traps, and stake weirs for estuary and floodplain capture.

• Grinding slabs for wild plant processing; basketry and cordage for transport and drying racks.

• Ostrich eggshell (OES) flasks for water carriage and abundant OES beads as exchange media.

• Early rafts/dugouts likely in calm estuaries and distributaries.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

Mobility braided coasts, valleys, pans, and deltas into one exchange field:

• Coastal corridors linked shell-midden coves with river mouths and inland passes to the Highveld and Drakensberg.

• Flood-ridge “causeways” among Okavango palm islands, Caprivi levee paths, and Omuramba routes to Etosha organized pulse-following rounds.

• The Maputo–Limpopo system and interior river valleys moved beads, pigments, dried fish, and hides between grassland and shore.

These routes created redundancy: when drought pinched a basin or a run failed, another habitat or partner camp stabilized supply.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

Symbolic life was vivid and place-anchored:

• Rock art in Drakensberg and Cederberg shelters flourished—polychrome animal–human scenes, trance dances, and eland-linked ceremonies.

• Shell middens functioned as ancestral markers at coastal landings; bead strings and pigment caches accumulated at island groves and pan-edge shelters in the north.

• Seasonal feasts at fish peaks and flood-begin events renewed access rules to weirs, springs, and groves—ritual governance of resources.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

Security rested on storage + scheduling + multi-ecozone use:

• Smoked/dried fish and meats, rendered fats, roasted seeds, and stored geophytes buffered lean months and Younger Dryas stress.

• Seasonal anchoring at rich coasts and pulse-following mobility across wetlands and pans spread risk.

• Edge-habitat focus (back-bar lagoons, riparian woods, pan margins) maximized predictable returns as conditions shifted.

Long-Term Significance

By 7,822 BCE, Southern Africa had stabilized as a water-anchored forager world: shell-midden communities lined the temperate coasts, and floodplain societies tuned lifeways to the Okavango–Caprivi–Etosha pulse. The shared operating code—portfolio subsistence, storage, seasonal anchoring with mobile spokes, bead-mediated exchange, and shrine-marked tenure—set the durable foundation for later Holocene traditions of coastal strandlopers, floodplain specialists, and, eventually, pastoral and farming horizons on the distant skyline.

Temperate Southern Africa (28,577 – 7,822 BCE) Upper Pleistocene II — Deglaciation, Coastal Abundance, and Semi-Sedentary Middens

Geographic and Environmental Context

• South Africa (Cape littoral, Highveld, Drakensberg, Karoo, Namaqualand).

• Lesotho and Eswatini.

• Most of Namibia and Botswana, except the far northern sectors (Caprivi, Etosha, Okavango, Skeleton Coast — those are in Tropical Southern Africa).

• Southern Zimbabwe and southwestern Mozambique (Maputo–Limpopo region).

Anchors: Cape littoral & fynbos, Drakensberg–Lesotho massif, Highveld grasslands (Witwatersrand, Free State), Namaqualand semi-desert, Kalahari southern margins, Great Karoo, Maputo–Limpopo basins, southern Zimbabwe plateau (Great Zimbabwe heartland).

• Rising seas drowned coastal plains, forming modern embayments.

• Grasslands contracted somewhat, but river valleys remained fertile.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

• Bølling–Allerød: wetter, warmer; grasslands greened.

• Younger Dryas: brief cold–dry pulse; coastal reliance intensified.

• Early Holocene: stabilization, rainfall increased.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Strandloper adaptations: large shell middens along Cape and Namaqualand coasts; fish, mussels, seals, seabirds.

• Inland foragers hunted antelope, collected geophytes in fynbos and grasslands.

• Semi-sedentary seasonal camps emerged at resource-rich coves.

Technology & Material Culture

• Microlithic bladelets; fish gorges, bone harpoons.

• Grindstones used for wild plant processing.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Coastal canoe/raft possible for estuaries.

• Inland passes tied grassland foragers with coastal strandlopers.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

• Rock art flourished in Drakensberg and Cederberg shelters.

• Middens used as ancestral markers.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

• Seasonal anchoring at rich coasts, plus inland mobility, buffered Younger Dryas stress.

Transition

By 7,822 BCE, shell-midden communities lined coasts, precursors to later strandlopers.

West Africa (28,577 – 7,822 BCE) Upper Pleistocene II — Deglaciation, Mega-Lakes, and Savanna Expansion

Geographic and Environmental Context

The Atlantic and inland belt from Senegal and Mauritania east through Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria (western and central), plus the forest–savanna margins of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, and Benin.

Anchors: Senegal–Gambia valleys, Inland Niger Bend and Inland Delta (Timbuktu, Mopti, Gao), Middle Niger–Kainji basin, Jos Plateau, Hausaland (Kano, Katsina, Zaria), Upper Volta basin, Gold Coast forest margins, Futa Jallon highlands, Dahomey Gap.

• Deglaciation brought wetter pulses; Lake Chad expanded.

• Niger Inland Delta broadened; Senegal estuaries lengthened.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

• Bølling–Allerød (14.7–12.9 ka): wet pulse, savannas expanded.

• Younger Dryas (12.9–11.7 ka): drought shrank rivers.

• Early Holocene: African Humid Period onset.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Foragers exploited mega-lake fisheries; hippo, crocodile, mollusks abundant.

• Hunting on open savannas intensified.

• Semi-sedentary lake camps formed.

Technology & Material Culture

• Barbed bone harpoons (Niger, Chad); microliths.

• Baked clay figurines (earliest Jōmon–Nok parallels).

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Lake Chad overflow connected Niger–Nile.

• Niger Valley provided cultural trunk.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

• Ritual deposits in middens; figurines mark symbolic systems.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

• Broad-spectrum foraging buffered climatic swings.

Transition

By 7,822 BCE, semi-sedentary foragers flourished in wetland savannas.

North Europe (7,821 – 6,094 BCE): Early Holocene — Forest Seas, Estuary Villages, and the First Pottery North

Geographic & Environmental Context

North Europe cohered as a water-linked crescent from the Baltic–Ladoga–Finnish lake districts and Uppland–Mälaren to the North Sea–Channel rias, Irish Sea, and the fjords of western Norway.
Postglacial transgression remade coasts: Doggerland fractured into banks and estuaries; the Irish Sea basin flooded; the Baltic stood in its Ancylus Lake phase with broad, river-fed shorelines. Birch–pine woodlands dominated northward; hazel–oak–elm took hold in southern belts, cloaking low hills and river terraces.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

The Holocene Thermal Maximum brought warm, moist, and seasonally reliable regimes. Lakes stabilized; rivers ran fuller but steadier; coastal wetlands and tidal lagoons expanded. In the northeast, the Ancylus Lake’s high stand created miles of rich strandlines; in the northwest, rising seas sculpted rias and salt-marsh mosaics along the Severn–Thames–Humber and the Armorican and Jutland coasts. Hazel mast peaked across much of the region, underwriting dense autumn stores.

Subsistence & Settlement

Communities across the north organized around semi-sedentary, water-anchored rounds, with seasonal mobility to uplands and outer coasts:

• Northeast (Baltic–Finnish–Karelian zone):
  Lake/river hamlets with pit-houses clustered on terraces and sand ridges. Diets were broad-spectrum—elk, boar, seal, salmon, pike, and cyprinids—balanced by nuts and wetland plants. The earliest northern pottery(Narva–Kunda traditions) appeared by the later centuries, used to boil fish and render fats for storage.

• Northwest (North Sea–Channel–Irish Sea–Norwegian fjords):
  Estuary villages grew at the Severn, Thames, and Humber; shell-midden hamlets ringed rias and dune bars. Fjord communities cycled through fish, seal, seabird rookeries, and riverine salmon runs; inland, red deer and boar hunting paired with heavy hazelnut harvests. Long-lived midden terraces and shore platforms marked enduring places in a moving sea.

Across both spheres, households returned to the same levees, spits, and rock shelters, creating place-memory landscapes without abandoning seasonal breadth.

Technology & Material Culture

A shared toolkit reflected water-first economies:

• Microlithic triangles and trapezes for composite arrows; ground-stone adzes for canoe and house carpentry.

• Nets, weirs, basket traps, gaffs, and harpoons scaled up mass capture; dugout canoes plied lakes, estuaries, and fjords.

• In the northeast, fiber-tempered, simply decorated pottery (Narva–Kunda) enabled boiling, fermenting, and fat storage, complementing bone and antler implements.

• Ornaments of amber, jet, shell, and antler circulated along coasts and river corridors, signaling alliances and route knowledge.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

Waterways were the highways of North Europe:

• Baltic canoe circuits linked Ladoga–Neva–Gulf of Finland, the Nemunas–Daugava belts, and forest-lake portages; early crossings Estonia ↔ southern Finland appear.

• North Sea estuaries formed exchange hubs; Irish Sea canoeing stitched western Britain and Ireland; fjord hopping along Norway connected inner valleys to outer skerries.

• Amber from Jutland and fine flints moved broadly; pottery know-how spread within the eastern lake districts. These braided lanes provided redundancy when local runs or shell banks failed.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

A rich symbolic grammar centered on water, animals, and ancestors:

• Rock art panels across Karelia, Finland, and Alta depict elk, boats, and fishing scenes—myths written in granite.

• Shell middens served as ancestral monuments on Atlantic–Channel shores; ochre burials with antler and bone tools, and in the northeast with early pots, formalized ties to place.

• Ritual feasting synchronized with salmon runs and shellfish peaks, renewing inter-household compacts and access rights to weirs, groves, and landing places.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

Households engineered stability through storage, scheduling, and multi-ecotone foraging:

• Smoked/dried fish and seal oils, roasted hazelnuts, and cached meats sustained overwintering.

• Coastal–inland alternation (estuary/shore ↔ forest/upland) buffered climate pulses; lagoon and lake fallbacks reduced risk.

• Tenure over weirs, groves, and routes, reinforced by ritual, regulated pressure on key resources and limited conflict.

Long-Term Significance

By 6,094 BCE, North Europe had become a paired maritime–lacustrine heartland: pottery-bearing forest foragers around the Baltic and estuary/fjord villagers along the Atlantic–Channel rim. Canoe logistics, storage economies, and shrine-marked tenure forged durable social fabrics that would absorb—rather than be erased by—the southward drift of farming in the millennia to come.
Here, the forest fed the water and the water fed the forest—a resilient human ecology already fluent in the languages of river, tide, and season.

Northeast Europe (7,821 – 6,094 BCE) Early Holocene — Boreal Forest Foragers and Earliest Pottery

Geographic and Environmental Context

Northeast Europe includes Sweden, Finland, the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), eastern Denmark (including Copenhagen, Zealand, Bornholm), eastern Norway (including Oslo), and the Russian enclave of Kalingrad.

• Anchors: Karelia–Lake Ladoga, Gulf of Finland–Estonia, Baltic forest lakes, Uppland–Lake Mälaren, Nemunas–Daugava corridors.

• Forests of birch–pine expanded north; hazel spread in south.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

• Holocene thermal optimum: warmer, wetter; lakes and rivers stabilized; sea level rise transformed Baltic into the Ancylus Lake.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Semi-sedentary lake/river villages with pit-houses; broad-spectrum diets (elk, boar, seal, salmon, nuts).

• Earliest pottery traditions: Narva–Kunda ware in Estonia–Latvia–Lithuania (fiber-tempered, simple decoration).

Technology & Material Culture

• Ground-stone adzes; nets, weirs; dugout canoes.

• Pottery for fish/meat boiling and storage.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Lake–river canoe circuits: Ladoga–Volga headwaters; Nemunas–Daugava–Baltic coastlines.

• Cross-Baltic crossings from Estonia to southern Finland appear.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

• Rock art of elk, boats, fishing scenes (Karelia, Alta, Finland).

• Cemeteries with ochre burials, antler tools, pottery.

Southern Africa (7,821 – 6,094 BCE): Early Holocene — Flood Pulses, Forested Shores, and a Golden Age of Image and Song

Geographic & Environmental Context

During the Early Holocene, Southern Africa cohered as a single hydrological tapestry: the Cape littoral and fynbos, Highveld grasslands and the Drakensberg–Lesotho massif, the Karoo and Namaqualand margins, and—northward—the Okavango–Zambezi–Chobe–Caprivi floodplains, Etosha’s pan–spring system, and the fog-nourished Skeleton Coast.
Warmer, wetter conditions raised river stages and swelled wetlands; grasslands were lush; estuaries and rocky coves along the Cape brimmed with marine life. Across both Temperate Southern Africa and Tropical West  Southern Africa, landscapes stabilized into reliable seasonal engines that anchored larger, longer-lived forager settlements than in the late Pleistocene.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

The Holocene thermal optimum brought stable, warm, moisture-rich regimes:

• In the temperate south, dependable rainfall fed perennial streams, seeps, and valley wetlands; fynbos productivity surged.

• In the tropical north, predictable flood pulses coursed through the Okavango and Caprivi distributaries; Etosha oscillated between shallow waters and saline playa fringed by thornveld.

• Coastal upwelling and surf-exposed shores along the Cape ensured year-round shellfish and fish abundance.
  This hydroclimatic equilibrium supported semi-sedentary anchoring at rivers, levees, pans, and coves, with seasonal forays that stitched biomes together.

Subsistence & Settlement

A continental portfolio subsistence matured, combining permanence with mobility:

• Temperate belts (Cape–Highveld–Drakensberg–Karoo/Namaqualand): large seasonal villages formed on rivers and coastal terraces. Diets blended shellfish, intertidal fish, and waterfowl with nuts, geophytes, fruits, and antelope from grassland and fynbos ecotones.

• Tropical floodplains and pans (Okavango–Caprivi–Etosha): levee hamlets worked fish weirs/traps, netted waterfowl, drove floodplain antelope, and harvested reed rhizomes and water-lilies; spring-edge camps around Etosha paired small-game hunts with seed and tuber gathering.
  Across both spheres, households returned to the same “home” nodes (levees, springs, dune bars, caves), building place memory and routinized storage.

Technology & Material Culture

Toolkits were light, durable, and water-savvy:

• Microlithic composite arrows with widespread bows; grinding slabs, bone awls, and sinew thread for leather and net repair.

• Nets, basketry fish traps, and stake weirs in floodplains and estuaries; dugout or raftlike craft in calm reaches.

• Ostrich eggshell (OES) flasks for water transport and abundant OES beads as exchange tokens.

• Pottery remains unlikely this early in these zones, but organic containers and smoke-drying racks left a strong storage signature.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

Mobility braided uplands, lowlands, and coasts into one exchange field:

• The Drakensberg–Highveld–Limpopo axis funneled hides, pigments, shell ornaments, and dried foods between mountains, plateau, and river basins.

• In the north, flood-ridge “causeways” among palm islands, Zambezi–Chobe canoe drifts, and Omuramba paths around Etosha linked seasonal camps.

• Cape coastal strips connected shell-rich coves with inland valleys; bead trails—especially OES bead chains—traced kin and ritual ties over long distances.
  These routes produced redundancy: when a run failed or a pan dried, another habitat or partner settlement filled the gap.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

The period witnessed a rock-art fluorescence unparalleled in its symbolic density:

• In the Drakensberg and Cape ranges, finely shaded polychromes depicted animal–human spiritual scenes, trance dances, and eland-centered ceremonies, encoding rainmaking, healing, and transformation.

• On northern pans and springs, bead caches, structured hearths, and healing/rain rites anchored settlement memory; trance traditions deepened with flood-pulse rhythms.

• Along the coasts, shell-midden feasts functioned as ancestral monuments, renewing access rights to fisheries and foraging grounds.
  Ritual did more than reflect subsistence—it governed access, timed movement, and knit far-flung camps into moral communities.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

Households engineered security through storage, scheduling, and multi-ecotone use:

• Smoke-dried fish, dried meats, roasted seeds and nuts, and rendered fats sustained overwintering and dry-season gaps.

• Seasonal rounds (coast/river ↔ upland/pan) buffered climate noise; island refugia in the Okavango and spring mounds at Etosha offered drought insurance.

• Tenure customs, marked by shrines, art, and feasting places, regulated pressure on key stocks (weirs, shell banks, berry groves), limiting conflict and overtake.

Long-Term Significance

By 6,094 BCE, Southern Africa had crystallized into a symbolically rich, storage-capable forager world: large seasonal villages on rivers and coasts in the south; flood-pulse hamlets and spring-edge camps in the north—each tied by exchange corridors and a shared ritual grammar.
These lifeways—portfolio subsistence, water-anchored settlement, bead-mediated alliances, and shrine-marked tenure—formed the durable substrate on which later herding frontiers (visible on distant horizons) and farmer networks would graft, without erasing the region’s deep art of place.

Temperate Southern Africa (7,821 – 6,094 BCE) Early Holocene — Rock Art Fluorescence and Pastoral Neighbors on Horizons

Geographic and Environmental Context

• South Africa (Cape littoral, Highveld, Drakensberg, Karoo, Namaqualand).

• Lesotho and Eswatini.

• Most of Namibia and Botswana, except the far northern sectors (Caprivi, Etosha, Okavango, Skeleton Coast — those are in Tropical Southern Africa).

• Southern Zimbabwe and southwestern Mozambique (Maputo–Limpopo region).

Anchors: Cape littoral & fynbos, Drakensberg–Lesotho massif, Highveld grasslands (Witwatersrand, Free State), Namaqualand semi-desert, Kalahari southern margins, Great Karoo, Maputo–Limpopo basins, southern Zimbabwe plateau (Great Zimbabwe heartland).

• Rainfall higher; rivers, wetlands abundant; grasslands lush.

• Cape fynbos highly productive.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

• Holocene thermal optimum; stable, wet, warm.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Large seasonal villages along rivers and coasts.

• Foragers harvested nuts, geophytes, fruits, fish, and hunted antelope.

• Ostrich eggshell water flasks common.

Technology & Material Culture

• Microlithic composite arrows; bows widespread.

• Grinding slabs, bone awls, nets.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Drakensberg–Highveld–Limpopo corridor tied uplands to lowlands.

• Exchange of ostrich shell beads across networks.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

• San rock art golden age: polychrome animal–human spiritual scenes.

• Shamans depicted trance dances, eland ceremonies.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

• Foraging diversified, seasonal rounds established.

Transition

By 6,094 BCE, temperate southern Africa’s foragers achieved symbolic richness unmatched worldwide.

West Africa (7,821 – 6,094 BCE) Early Holocene — Wet-Phase Abundance and Proto-Horticulture

Geographic and Environmental Context

The Atlantic and inland belt from Senegal and Mauritania east through Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria (western and central), plus the forest–savanna margins of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, and Benin.

Anchors: Senegal–Gambia valleys, Inland Niger Bend and Inland Delta (Timbuktu, Mopti, Gao), Middle Niger–Kainji basin, Jos Plateau, Hausaland (Kano, Katsina, Zaria), Upper Volta basin, Gold Coast forest margins, Futa Jallon highlands, Dahomey Gap.

• African Humid Period peak; Sahara green with savannas and lakes.

• Niger Inland Delta vast; Senegal–Volta valleys lush.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

• Monsoons strong; rainfall abundant.

• Lakes and rivers at highstand.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Foragers became semi-sedentary fishers–hunters.

• Early tending of wild millet, sorghum, fonio in Sahel/Upper Volta.

• Oil palm exploited in forest–savanna margins.

Technology & Material Culture

• Polished stone axes; ground slabs; first widespread pottery (~9000–7000 BCE).

• Net weights, fish traps.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Savanna corridors connected Senegal–Niger–Lake Chad.

• Early exchanges in beads, shells.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

• Rock art in central Sahara shows cattle/wildlife.

• Burials at river sites with ochre, ornaments.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

• Dual resource use (crops + fish) stabilized communities.

Transition

By 6,094 BCE, proto-horticulture was underway alongside abundant foraging.

The Middle East (7101–6958 BCE): Early Metallurgy and Agricultural Communities

Settlement at Hacilar

Between 7101 and 6958 BCE, the archaeological site of Hacilar in southwestern Anatolia emerged prominently. Radiocarbon dating, uncalibrated, indicates that the earliest stages of Hacilar’s development date to approximately 7040 BCE. Structures at the site were constructed from mud brick, wood, and stone, showcasing the sophistication of architectural practices in these early farming communities.

Early Metallurgy and Agricultural Practices

Around 7000 BCE, small rural farming communities across the ancient Near East began practicing simple forms of metallurgy. Evidence from Çayönü, a Neolithic ceremonial site in southern Turkey inhabited approximately from 7200 to 6600 BCE, includes crude examples of cold-hammered copper dating as early as 7000 BCE, representing some of the earliest known metallurgy.

Domestication and Environmental Context at Çayönü

The settlement at Çayönü holds particular significance due to its possible role in the initial domestication of pigs (Sus scrofa). The site's diverse wild fauna included wild boar, wild sheep, wild goats, and cervids. Its environment featured marshes and swamps near the Bogazcay River, open woodland, patches of steppe, and almond-pistachio forest-steppe to the south.

Notably, research by the Max Planck Institute for Breeding Research in Cologne has identified Mount Karaca (Karaca Dag), located near Çayönü, as home to the genetically common ancestor of sixty-eight contemporary cereal varieties. This ancestor still grows wild on the mountain slopes, underscoring the site's crucial role in early agricultural developments.

This period illustrates significant technological advancements, particularly in metallurgy, alongside essential agricultural innovations that collectively supported the growing complexity and stability of Neolithic societies in the Middle East.