Africa-wide diversification of livelihoods strategies: Isotopic insights into Holocene human adaptations to climate change

As livelihoods face threats from climate change globally, it is critical to clarify human-environment relationships, and the factors influencing risk, adaptation, and resilience. Contemporary African communities have contributed least to climate change, yet increasingly bear the greatest burden of its impacts. Africa contains the longest record of human-climate coevolution; however, Holocene livelihoods have not been comparatively characterised at continental scale. By combining archaeological context with isotopic niches to describe Holocene livelihoods (c. 11,000 BP - present) and their evolution during major climatic change (African Humid Period: c. 14,700-5500 BP), we demonstrate the socio-ecological development of livelihoods and their contributions to human resilience – particularly through livelihood diversification. By empirically comparing food-producing (pastoralism, cultivation) and food-gathering strategies (hunting-gathering, fishing), we contribute continental-scale context for the complex interactions underpinning the expansion of food production, and illustrate the importance of livelihood diversification under intensifying environmental change with implications for food security and human well-being.

Methods
The data was analysed in R and collected from publications associated with each isotopic record. Contextual information was summarised and then developed into a harmonised categorisation scheme, associated with isotope cluster type (isootpic niche).