The Holocene Lake Plain of North Rudolph, East Africa

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Abstract
During most of the early and middle Holocene, Lake Rudolf was 75m deeper than today, flooding the Kibish Lake Plain as much as 60–100km north and northwest of the modern shore, with periodic overflow across the White Nile watershed. The landforms and sediment sequences of this lake plain are mapped or profiled, described, and integrated into a regional geomorphologic framework, controlled by a suite of 14C dates. High lake stands are dated 10,000–7,000, 6500–4000 and about 3250 years ago (uncalibrated), with levels fluctuating around that of the present 7000–6500 and since 2500 years. Environmental changes of such magnitude reflect long-term changes of East African climate, so that the Rudolf Basin provides a well-documented index of regional climatic trends for the last 10 millenia. Since shortly after 10,000 years, prehistoric fishing and hunting settlements dotted the rivers and shorelines, favored by optimal aquatic resources but inhibited by a higher incidence of malaria. Aquatic subsistence patterns survived severe but temporary lake shrinkage 7000 years ago; during the last 5 millennia they have gradually given way to pastoral cultures. The Kibish Lake Plain serves to illustrate that geographic landscape analysis can rarely afford to be ahistorical.

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