The 15th Congress of PanAfrican Archaeological Association for Prehistory and Related Studies (PanAf)

Rabat, Morocco, between 10-14 September, 2018

Abstracts of papers may be submitted to one of the thematic sessions proposed and accepted available on the site http://panaf18.fsoujda.org/en/accepted-sessions/

PANEL SESSION:
Patterns of anthropogenic and climate-induced land cover change: Integrating archaeological, historical and palaeoenvironmental datasets

Adequate incorporation of land cover in global and regional climate models is still one of the major priorities in the climate modelling community. In particular, anthropogenic land cover change (ALCC) is still not successfully implemented in these models. Africa has considerable archaeological, cultural and environmental heritage that have the potential to inform understanding of the scale and distribution of past land use and land cover changes. Yet, datasets and metrics are sparsely distributed and have limited accessibility. Collating archaeological, palaeoenvironmental, anthropological and historical datasets of past land cover and land uses is the first major step and requires experts from multiple disciplines. These exercises also act as knowledge gap analyses that identify regions where data is limited and can be focused for future efforts. Merging the datasets into a modelling framework for retrospective (historical) models and projections of future models requires expert consensus and new modelling techniques. Together these data and model products inform us of the long-term natural and anthropogenic processes that modify the earth’s surface – crucial information for policies of land management in a multi-stressor and multi-stakeholder world