A geoarchaeological investigation of Middle Stone Age human response to environmental change on the shores of Lake Malawi

非洲的中石器时代，大约在28万到3万年前，是人类进化的关键时期，当时人们开始表现出与我们相似的行为特征。马拉维湖最近的古环境研究表明，与中石器时代相对应的时期以长期的极端干旱为特征，这可能导致了人类觅食策略、定居行为和人口统计学的变化。在这里，我们建议通过研究马拉维湖沿岸保存完好的古景观来调查极端环境变化对中石器时代人类的影响。利用各种地质考古分析和定年方法，我们将构建一个详细的、按时间顺序可靠的遗址形成和景观发展历史，我们将与高分辨率的湖泊记录进行比较。我们的景观发展模型将使我们能够直接将古环境、古景观和考古数据集联系起来，以便研究中石器时代人类如何应对极端环境变化。

The Middle Stone Age of Africa, generally dated between 280,000 and 30,000 years ago, is a key period in human evolution when people began exhibiting behavioral characteristics similar to our own. Recent paleoenvironmental research from Lake Malawi suggests that the time period corresponding to the Middle Stone Age was marked by extended periods of extreme drought, which may have induced changes in human foraging strategies, settlement behavior, and demography. Here we propose to investigate the influence of extreme environmental change on Middle Stone Age people by studying a well-preserved paleolandscape along the shores of Lake Malawi. Using various geoarchaeological analyses and dating methods, we will construct a detailed and chronologically robust history of site formation and landscape development that we will compare with the high-resolution lacustrine records. Our landscape development model will allow us to directly link paleoenvironmental, paleolandscape, and archaeological datasets, in order to investigate how Middle Stone Age humans responded to extreme environmental change.