On Friday September 23rd, Dr. Peter Mitchell gave a Distinguished Lecture in African Archaeology presentation titled, “Climate Change and Archaeology in Late Pleistocene southern Africa: Implications for People Then and Now.” Dr. Mitchell is Professor of African Archaeology at the University of Oxford. The talk analyzed central questions about the nature of climate change affecting African environments south of the Zambezi River during the Late Pleistocene era, about 7,500 and 12,000 years ago. In particular, Mitchell discussed whether southern Africa was as arid in the Late Pleistocene as some have claimed, how climate change affected human populations during the Late Pleistocene period, and how climate change during this period relates to the global heating phenomenon the world now faces.
As relates to the first question, Mitchell emphasized his disagreement with the often stated belief that about 50,000 years ago, the environment in southern Africa became dry and overall a less suitable human environment, thus prompting many humans to leave the area. Instead Mitchell provided evidence that there were periods during this time that were wetter than the environment in southern Africa now. Further, while other scholars believe archaeological records for this time period are sparse, which would mean humans did leave the area, Mitchell argues that the archaeological records were in different places than before, including the strong likelihood that archaeological records near the ocean have been compromised due to rising sea levels. At a broader ideological level, Mitchell pushes the field of archaeology to get past “block-like thinking that downplays or ignores variation and assumes simple, directional rather than complex, non-unilineral change is past its sell-by date”. By engaging in dynamic archaeological analyses of the effects of climate change on past populations in southern Africa, we can gain insights into how climate change is likely to impact people in the future.