caa a22 4500 605448809 CHVBK 20210128100138.0 cr unu---uuuuu 210128e20151201xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10437-015-9202-y doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10437-015-9202-y Holocene Environmental Change at Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa: Insights from Stable Light Isotopes in Ostrich Eggshell [Elektronische Daten] [Julia Lee-Thorp, Michaela Ecker] Sparse records and discontinuous and/or poor chronologically resolved data hinder construction of reliable palaeoenvironmental sequences for the interior of South Africa. Wonderwerk Cave occupies a central position in the interior where the Kalahari Thornveld/dry woodland vegetation and generally arid conditions are expected to be sensitive to subtle past climate perturbations, and evidence from this site has been key to forming views on environmental change in the interior. A compilation of existing data including principal component analysis of pollen suggested broad trends, ranging from variably arid and open in the early Holocene to moister conditions from about 7500 to 5000years, followed by aridity thereafter. In an effort to better establish the nature and timing of shifts from the Late Pleistocene sequence onwards, we analyse carbon and oxygen isotope ratios in a robust sample of ostrich eggshell from Wonderwerk Cave. The resulting data are then placed within a temporal framework established by Bayesian modelling of existing radiocarbon dates and compared against shifts in the Wonderwerk cultural sequence. Several shifts and trends in aridity include an arid to moist shift in layer 4b near 6000years, coincident with a cultural shift within the Wilton assemblage, and thereafter an aridification trend culminating at about 2000years with the appearance of the ceramic LSA. Springer Science+Business Media New York, 2015 Aridity nationallicence Radiocarbon dates nationallicence Bayesian model nationallicence C3 vegetation nationallicence C4 grasses nationallicence Lee-Thorp Julia Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, OX1 3QY, Oxford, UK aut Ecker Michaela Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, OX1 3QY, Oxford, UK aut African Archaeological Review Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 32/4(2015-12-01), 793-811 0263-0338 32:4<793 2015 32 10437 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-015-9202-y text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-015-9202-y text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Lee-Thorp Julia Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, OX1 3QY, Oxford, UK aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Ecker Michaela Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, OX1 3QY, Oxford, UK aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- African Archaeological Review Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 32/4(2015-12-01), 793-811 0263-0338 32:4<793 2015 32 10437