Human influence, plant landscape, evolution and climate inferences from the archaeobotanical records of the Wadi Teshuinat area (Libyan Sahara)

Central Sahara rock shelters offer an early and middle Holocene environmentalreconstruction. This paper summarises palynological research carried out within amultidisciplinary archaeological research project on the Wadi Teshuinat area (TadrartAcacus Mts., in south-western Fezzan, Libya). The sites were occupied by hunter-gathererand pastoralist cultures. On-site pollen data, treated as a single ‘regional site’, showed thatdifferent pollen stratigraphies and flora characterised the past phases. Plant macroremainsalso helped to understand local plant exploitation and landscape evolution.Pollen spectra showed the following climate oscillations: wet and cool (approx.8800–8250 cal. BC), dry and warm (approx. 7920–7520 cal. BC), wet (approx. 7550–7200 cal. BC), dry (approx. 6340–6210 cal. BC—geoarchaeological evidence), wet andwarm (approx. 6250–4300 cal. BC, including a wetter and warmer phase at approx.5500–4600 cal. BC); dry and warm (approx. 4250–2900 cal. BC); drier and warm (approx.2900–1600 cal. BC, up to the present). Since the early Holocene, both climatic andanthropic factors have played an important and strictly interconnected role intransforming the environment. Thus, while subsistence strategies were adjusting toclimatic and environmental changes, the plant landscape was also being slowly andcontinuously shaped by humans.