DataSheet2_Human-ecodynamics and the intertidal zones of the Zanzibar Archipelago.docx

The intertidal zone, covering the nearshore fringe of coasts and islands and extending from the high-water mark to areas that remain fully submerged, encompasses a range of habitats containing resources that are as important to modern populations as they were to humans in prehistory. Effectively bridging land and sea, intertidal environments are extremely dynamic, requiring complexity and variability in how people engaged with them in the past, much as they do in the present. Here we review and reconsider environmental, archaeological, and modern socio-ecological evidence from the Zanzibar Archipelago on eastern Africa’s Swahili coast, focusing on marine molluscs to gain insight into the trajectories of human engagement with nearshore habitats and resources. We highlight the potential drivers of change and/or stability in human-intertidal interactions through time and space, set against a backdrop of the significant socio-economic and socio-ecological changes apparent in the archipelago, and along the Swahili coast, during the late Holocene.

潮间带（intertidal zone）覆盖海岸与岛屿的近岸边缘，范围自高潮线延伸至持续完全淹没的区域，其涵盖的多样生境中蕴含的资源，对现代人群的重要性不亚于史前人类。作为衔接海陆的关键过渡地带，潮间带环境极具动态性，无论过去还是当下，人类与该环境的互动模式都需要兼具复杂性与多变性。本研究对东非斯瓦希里海岸桑给巴尔群岛（Zanzibar Archipelago）的环境、考古学及现代社会生态证据进行梳理与再审视，以海洋软体动物（marine molluscs）为研究对象，探究人类与近岸生境及资源互动的发展轨迹。本研究以全新世晚期该群岛及斯瓦希里海岸显著的社会经济与社会生态变迁为背景，重点剖析不同时空尺度下，人类与潮间带互动模式的变化或稳定的潜在驱动因素。