A Context for Connectivity: Insights to Environmental Heterogeneity in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene of Southern Africa Through Measuring Isotope Space and Overlap

Southern Africa is characterized by the development of varied Middle and Later Stone Age techno-complexes and behaviors against a backdrop of complex climatic conditions during the late Pleistocene and Holocene. While much work has been devoted to reconstructing regional environmental patterns, site-specific ecological and habitat contexts have primarily focused on a single site or small area. The local manifestations of regional climatic conditions are analyzed here by compiling faunal enamel stable isotope data from 13 sites across South Africa, Lesotho, and Zambia. Measuring isotope space and overlap reveals distinct on-the-ground habitat circumstances across regions and even variability within some regions, especially in the period ~ 36,000–5000 years ago. This analytical framework aims to test whether sites within the same environmental zones overlap in isotope space and finds that there is greater intra-regional environmental heterogeneity than expected. Patterns of contracting and expanding isotope space, especially along the oxygen axis, may provide insight to shifts in rainfall seasonality and, perhaps, sources of precipitation. This increased understanding of the local manifestations of regional climatic conditions through time and space will be a critical component of models of population movement and interactions in the late Pleistocene and Holocene of southern Africa.