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13 - Burial Practices, Settlement and Regional Connections around the Southern Lake Chad Basin, 1500 BC–AD 1500

from Part V - Looking South

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 June 2019

By
Scott MacEachern
Edited by
M. C. Gatto ,
D. J. Mattingly ,
N. Ray  and
M. Sterry
M. C. Gatto
Affiliation:
University of Leicester
D. J. Mattingly
Affiliation:
University of Leicester
N. Ray
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
M. Sterry
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Summary

The Lake Chad Basin constitutes an important crossroads in Africa, in the middle of the sweep of savanna that stretches from the Atlantic to the Nile and articulating the Central Sahara with lands to the south. This positioning implicated the region in human responses to Mid-Late Holocene environmental changes, especially those involving decreases in rainfall regimes and the disappearance of Lake Mega-Chad. Archaeological and other evidence indicates that these processes involved periodic population exchanges and cultural interchanges between the southern Sahara and the Lake Chad Basin. The period from c.1800 BC onward saw a development ofagro-pastoral systems and an expansion of permanent settlements south of Lake Chad, first on Gajiganna Culture sites and then more widely.

Type
Chapter
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Burials, Migration and Identity in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond , pp. 399 - 428
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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