Livelihood diversity wasn’t just a feature of ancient African societies—it was key to survival.
New research covering millennia of African history reveals that livelihood diversification enabled ancient societies across the continent to adapt to major climate shifts. The findings suggest that long-term resilience to climate change is not driven by uniform solutions, but by strategies grounded in ecological fit, flexibility and local knowledge.
The study was published last week in the journal One Earth.
Africa underwent significant environmental change during the Holocene Epoch, which spans roughly the past 11,000 years. For example, the African Humid Period brought nearly 9,000 years of wetter weather to much of the continent, followed by increasingly arid conditions. As ecosystems transformed and food sources changed, societies developed flexible, locally adapted combinations of herding, farming, fishing and foraging that helped them navigate thousands of years of environmental upheaval. The researchers say this flexibility in subsistence was a hallmark of African adaptation to changing conditions and essential for long-term resilience.
“What we see is not a linear story of progress but a complex mosaic of strategies that helped people stay resilient. That has real lessons for food systems today,” said Leanne N. Phelps, the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral researcher at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, which is part of the Columbia Climate School.
A New Lens on Ancient Adaptation
To determine how ancient African communities adapted their ways of life to environmental change, the researchers analyzed a recently released, continent-wide isotope dataset spanning the entire Holocene. When people or animals eat plants, the isotopes are stored in their bones, teeth, and other tissues. By sampling and analyzing these tissues, researchers can identify the types of plants and animals people consumed and, by extension, infer how they got their food.
Part of the analysis focused on the differences between C3 and C4 plants, which use distinct photosynthetic pathways. C3 plants, such as wheat and barley, thrive in cooler, wetter environments, while C4 plants, like millet, sorghum and tropical grasses, prefer warm, dry conditions. These isotopic differences can help researchers understand how communities combined different ways of obtaining food, since each approach leaves a distinct pattern in human and animal remains.
The research team used a method called hierarchical clustering to sort similar isotope data into groups based on shared traits. Instead of starting with predefined categories, the algorithm looked for natural patterns in the data, grouping individuals with similar profiles into what they call “isotopic niches.” Each niche reflects a unique combination of food consumption linked to one or more of four core activities: herding, farming, fishing and foraging.
To interpret these profiles, the researchers reviewed archaeological records from across Africa to determine the types of livelihoods likely practiced in different areas. They integrated modern climate and elevation data to reconstruct the environmental settings where these strategies occurred. This approach enabled them to define 10 broad livelihood strategies and track how these emerged, shifted and overlapped across time and ecological zones.
For example, one niche was associated with C3-based farming systems in temperate regions, like the Ethiopian highlands and parts of North Africa. Other niches showed reliance on C4 plants and grazing animals in dry grasslands, or aquatic-based strategies near lakes and rivers. Together, these patterns reveal the varied, highly localized and innovative ways African societies adapted their food sources to environmental change.
The methodological approach is novel in that it uses clustering techniques to detect statistically meaningful patterns in isotope data and pairs them with archaeological records to identify how ancient communities made a living. Phelps says the method could also help researchers in other fields make sense of large, complex datasets that span long periods and broad regions.
Lessons for Navigating Climate Change
Understanding how ancient societies adapted to climate and ecological change provides a valuable framework for addressing climate challenges. This research contributes to that framework by demonstrating that flexible, locally adapted strategies supported long-term human resilience in Africa. The authors emphasize that modern climate adaptation efforts should be similarly grounded, drawing on the types of diversified approaches that have sustained African communities for thousands of years.
“If we want climate solutions and global environmental change solutions to work, they need to be rooted in an understanding of the way that people have been using available resources throughout time,” said Phelps.
The study was coauthored by Dylan S. Davis, Chiamaka Mangu and Kristina Douglass, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory; Caroline E.R. Lehmann, University of Edinburgh; Jennifer C. Chen, The Pennsylvania State University; and Shayla Monroe, Harvard University.