Tropical West Southern Africa (28,577 – 7,822 BCE) Upper Pleistocene II — Deglaciation, Larger Floods, and Pan-Woodland Mosaics

Geographic and Environmental Context:

Tropical West Southern Africa includes the far-northern zones of Botswana and Namibia, including the Okavango Delta, the Zambezi–Chobe–Caprivi Strip wetlands, the Etosha Pan basin and surrounding thornveld, and the Namib’s Skeleton Coast fringe.

Anchors: Okavango Delta (Boro–Thamalakane–Khwai distributaries), Zambezi–Chobe–Cuando/ Kwando–Linyanti–Caprivi channels and floodplains, Etosha Pan (Oshigambo–Oshivelo margins, Ekuma–Omuramba inlets), Owambo/ Cuvelai seasonal rivers, and the Skeleton Coast (surf-battered gravel plains, fog-fed lichen fields, seal rookeries).

• Rising rainfall during interstadials enlarged Okavango inundations and Caprivi wetlands; woodland belts thickened around Etosha and the Owambo/ Cuvelai drains.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

• Bølling–Allerød: increased summer rains boosted channel floods, island growth, and riparian mast;

• Younger Dryas: drought pulse contracted marsh edges;

• Early Holocene: warming and stronger ITCZ rains stabilized flood regimes.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Semi-recurrent floodplain camps exploited fish runs (catfish/ tilapia), flood-recession grazing antelope, and riparian fruits;

• Etosha margin hunts targeted springbok, zebra, oryx near permanent water;

• Caprivi supported large wet-season encampments on levees;

• Skeleton Coast remained a short-visit zone for carrion/ shellfish.

Technology & Material Culture

• Microlithic bladelets & backed segments; bone harpoons/ gorges; woven fish-baskets; OES water flasks & beads; grindstones for geophytes/ seeds.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Seasonal Okavango distributaries (Thamalakane–Boro–Khwai) and Caprivi levee paths let groups circulate with flood pulse timing;

• Etosha access via Omuramba saddles.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

• Bead strings and pigment caches deposited at long-lived island groves and pan-edge shelters; first engravings on calcrete/ dolomite slabs near Etosha implied.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

• Pulse-following mobility and broad-spectrum diets blunted drought stress of the Younger Dryas.

Transition

By 7,822 BCE, people were tuning lifeways to flood pulses — a forager hallmark of this aquatic-savanna frontier.